Evan T. Bloom is a lawyer and former senior U.S. diplomat. He is a global fellow at the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute in Washington, DC, senior advisor to the Centre for Ocean and the Arctic of the Arctic University of Norway, Polar Governance Chair of the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies and MPA Advisor to the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. He is co-editor of the Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Polar Law (2025).During his nearly thirty years at the Department of State (1991-2020), Mr. Bloom served as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and Fisheries and Director of the Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs as a member of the Senior Executive Service and focused in particular on Arctic and Antarctic governance and foreign policy. With regard to the Arctic, he helped establish the Arctic Council, negotiating its initial rules and documents in 1996. He supervised US representation in the Council from 2006 to 2020. He co-chaired the Council’s task force that produced the eight-party Agreement on Arctic Science Cooperation in 2017. He also co-chaired the Council’s Ecosystem-Based Management Experts Group.He led US Antarctic policy as head of the US delegations to the annual Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources from 2006 to 2020. He led four official inspections of foreign facilities in Antarctica.He led the US delegation to high seas treaty negotiations (biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction) at the UN from 2016-2020. He chaired the Executive Committee of the federal Extended Continental Shelf Task Force and supervised State Department representation at the International Maritime Organization and the International Seabed Authority. He led US delegations to numerous law of the sea bilateral and multilateral dialogues and served as the State Department’s representative to the White House Ocean Policy Committee.Mr. Bloom is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the Explorers Club. He received the Commandant’s Distinguished Public Service Medal from the US Coast Guard in 2020 and the US Antarctica Service Medal in 2007. He holds degrees from Princeton University (AB) and Columbia Law School (JD). Prior to his government service, he was in private practice in Tokyo and Washington, DC.