Sherri Goodman: Environmental Changes & Its Impact on Global Security

Biography

Sherri Goodman is a national security, energy and climate security leader, and former senior defense official. She is the author of Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security, the story of the US military’s experience on the front lines of a changing climate.

Sherri serves as the Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate and Security. She is a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Senior Associate at the Harvard Arctic Initiative.  She was a senior fellow at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and Polar Institute. She is the founding board chair of the Council on Strategic Risks and Advisory Board Member of the Center for Climate & Security.  She serves on the boards of the Atlantic Council and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Sherri is the former president and CEO of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership. She served as senior vice president and general counsel of CNA from 2001 to 2014. She is the founder and executive director of the CNA Military Advisory Board, whose landmark reports include National Security and the Threat of Climate Change (2007). 

Sherri served as the first Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (Environmental Security) from 1993 to 2001, where she was responsible for environmental issues, energy, safety, and occupational health policy and programs.   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 practiced law at Goodwin Procter as a litigator and environmental attorney and has worked at RAND and SAIC. 

Awards include the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Environmental Peacebuilding Association in 2024, honorary doctorate from Amherst College in 2018, Department of Defense Distinguished Service Award in 1998 and 2001, Gold Medal Award from the National Defense Industrial Organization in 1996, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Change Award in 2000.

She holds degrees from Harvard Law School, Harvard Kennedy School, and Amherst College.

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