Role Administrator Website Government website | Spouse(s) Jeffrey Randall Books Allies in crisis | |
Full Name Elizabeth Sherwood Alma mater Harvard UniversityBalliol College, Oxford Name Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall Education Harvard University, Balliol College |
Welcoming deputy secretary elizabeth sherwood randall
Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall (born 1959) is an American national security expert and energy leader who served as the United States Deputy Secretary of Energy from October 2014 to January 20, 2017. Previously, she was White House Coordinator for Defense Policy, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Arms Control and, before that, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs since January 2009.
Contents
- Welcoming deputy secretary elizabeth sherwood randall
- 2012 young atlanticist summit conversation with elizabeth sherwood randall
- Early life and education
- Deputy Secretary of Energy
- Publications
- Personal life
- References
Her White House Coordinator responsibilities included defense policy and budgeting; the DOD-DOE nuclear weapons enterprise; military sexual assault prevention; the Prague arms control agenda; and the destruction of Syria’s declared chemical weapons. She served as the Presidential Sherpa for the Nuclear Security Summit in 2014, which mobilized actions to take fissile materials off the global playing field. As Senior Director for European Affairs, she focused on revitalizing America’s unique network of alliance relationships and strengthening cooperation with 49 countries and three international institutions in Europe (NATO, the EU, and the OSCE) to advance U.S. global interests.
From 1997 to 2008, she was Founding Senior Advisor of the Prevent Defense Project at Stanford University. In the Clinton administration, from 1994 to 1996, Sherwood-Randall served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia.

2012 young atlanticist summit conversation with elizabeth sherwood randall
Early life and education

Sherwood-Randall's father, Richard E. Sherwood, was a senior partner in a Los Angeles law firm, a long-standing patron of the arts in Los Angeles, a prominent member of international affairs organizations like the Asia Society and the Rand-UCLA Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and long time leader of the American Jewish Committee. She has one brother, Ben Sherwood. She received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University, and a doctorate in international relations from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College. She and her brother, Ben Sherwood, were the first brother sister team of Rhodes scholars.
Her Harvard roommate was future United States Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker.
Deputy Secretary of Energy
Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall was nominated by President Barack Obama to be Deputy Secretary of Energy on July 8, 2014, and was confirmed by the United States Senate on 18 September 2014.
Publications
She has published widely on national security issues, mainly on U.S alliances and nuclear proliferation. Her first book, Allies in Crisis: Meeting Global Challenges to Western Security, looked at the history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and described how it handled crises outside of Europe without weakening the organization. In 2006, she wrote Alliances and American National Security, which makes the case for modernizing U.S. alliances as a means to reach the nation's security goals.
Personal life
She is married to neurosurgeon Jeffrey Randall. They have two sons, Richard and William.