Winnona Bernsen is an associate in the Litigation Department.

Ms. Bernsen joined Debevoise in 2025. She received her JD cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, and her MPP degree from the Harvard Kennedy School. During her graduate school career, Ms. Bernsen helped organize cyber policy content at DEFCON, the world’s largest hacking conference, and was a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council Cyber Statecraft Initiative.

At the Atlantic Council, she published multiple research pieces on offensive cyber operations, cyber policy, and cyber security, and has written multiple op-eds for Lawfare.

Ms. Bernsen is also the founder and on the board of DistrictCon, a hacker conference in Washington DC.

Prior to law school, Ms. Bernsen was a security engineer at Google, tracking and shutting down nation state cyber threats. She received a BS magna cum laude from Tufts University.