Sherri Goodman

Sherri Goodman is a leading expert, executive, and author on environmental, energy and climate security and geopolitics, including the Arctic. She serves as the Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate and Security, a board director at the Atlantic Council and a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Goodman is the founding board chair of the Council on Strategic Risks, the chair of the Energy and Homeland Security External Advisory Board for Sandia National Labs, a board member of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where she served on the Arctic Task Force.

Goodman previously served as the first deputy undersecretary of defense for environmental security at the Department of Defense. At the Department, she established the first environmental, safety and health performance metrics, developed the President’s plan for revitalizing base closure communities, and negotiated the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation Agreement with Russia and Norway. She also served as president and CEO of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership; as senior vice president and general counsel of the U.S. Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), where she founded and led the CNA Military Advisory Board, the first group of U.S. Admirals and Generals to assess the national security implications of climate change. Goodman served on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee where she was responsible for oversight of the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex. She has also served as vice chair of the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board and as a senior fellow at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and Polar Institute. She has served on the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program Advisory Committee, and on the National Academies’ Boards on Environmental Studies and Toxicology and on the Board on Energy and Environmental Systems. She was a member of the Joint Ocean Commission Leadership Initiative and the US Water Partnership Leadership Council. Goodman has practiced law at Goodwin Procter, as both a litigator and environmental attorney, and has worked at RAND and SAIC.

Goodman has received numerous honors and awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Environmental Peacebuilding Association in 2024; an Honorary Doctorate from Amherst College in 2018; the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Award in 1998 and 2001; the Gold Medal Award from the National Defense Industrial Organization in 1996; and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Change Award in 2000. She is the author of The Neutron Bomb Controversy: A Case Study in Alliance Politics (Praeger, 1983) and Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security (Island Press 2024), as well as dozens of reports and articles on a broad range of climate, energy, environmental, and national security matters. Goodman is a frequent public speaker in the media and at universities and conferences.

Goodman is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School (MPP), where she was an adjunct teaching fellow, Harvard Law School (J.D. cum laude), and Amherst College (B.A. summa cum laude).