Sherri Goodman is an independent board director; 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 (Island Press, 2024), the story of the US military’s experience on the front lines of a changing frontier for energy and climate resilience.

Sherri Goodman serves as the Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate and Security, which represents more than 40 military and national security organizations addressing the security risks of a changing climate. 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 a frequent public speaker and is credited with educating a generation of US military and government officials about the nexus between climate change and national security, coining the term “threat multiplier,” and fundamentally reshaping the national discourse on the topic.

Goodman 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, where she served as chair of the advisory board for the Council’s report on Governing Solar Geoengineering and on the Arctic Task Force. Goodman served as co-chair of the Commission on Nuclear Energy and American Leadership.

Goodman 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) and Advanced Energy and US National Security (2017).

Goodman 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 for the DOD. She established the first environmental, safety, and health performance metrics for the Department and led its energy, environmental, and natural resource conservation programs. Overseeing the President’s plan for revitalizing base closure communities, she ensured that 80 percent of base closure property became available for transfer and reuse. She led the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation program, which developed a container for storage of spent nuclear fuel for liquid waste from Russian nuclear submarines.

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, including research and development of nuclear materials and national labs as well as environmental cleanup and management. She has practiced law at Goodwin Procter as both a litigator and environmental attorney and has worked at RAND Corporation and SAIC.

She 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.

Goodman is the author of The Neutron Bomb Controversy: A Case Study in Alliance Politics (Praeger, 1983) and has written dozens of reports and articles on a broad range of climate, energy, environmental, and national security matters. Hon. Goodman appears regularly on major news media and is an active public speaker at universities, research organizations, and corporations. She holds degrees from Harvard Law School, Harvard Kennedy School, and Amherst College.