Sherri Goodman is a board director at the Atlantic Council. She is also a distinguished fellow with the Global Energy Center and the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Adrienne Arsht National Security Resilience Initiative and Transatlantic Security Initiative.

She is the secretary general of the International Military Council on Climate & Security, senior associate at the Harvard Arctic Initiative,  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 for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Goodman previously served as the first deputy undersecretary of defense for environmental security at the Department of Defense. At the Pentagon, 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 the Pentagon’s first chief environmental and sustainability officer; as president and chief executive officer of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership; and as senior vice president and general counsel of the US Center for Naval Analyses, where she founded the Military Advisory Board. 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. Additionally, 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 at universities and conferences. She is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School (MPP), where she was an adjunct teaching fellow, Harvard Law School (JD cum laude), and Amherst College (BA summa cum laude).