His father has worked as a bankruptcy lawyer in private practice in New York and served on the American Bar Association’s Board of Governors from 1988 to 1991.

[1] Geltzer attended Hunter College High School in New York City and then Princeton University.

He graduated summa cum laude and his senior thesis won the Myron Herrick Prize.

[3] After Princeton, Geltzer pursued a Ph.D. in war studies at King's College London as a Marshall Scholar, where he wrote his dissertation on Al-Qaeda and U.S. counter-terrorism policy.

Geltzer then joined the Obama administration's United States National Security Council as Deputy Legal Advisor to the NSC and then Senior Director for Counterterrorism.