Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall (born 1959)[1] is an American government official who serves as the Homeland Security Advisor for President Joe Biden.[2]

Liz Sherwood-Randall
11th United States Homeland Security Advisor
Incumbent
Assumed office January 20, 2021
President	Joe Biden
Preceded by	Julia Nesheiwat
18th United States Deputy Secretary of Energy
In office October 10, 2014 – January 20, 2017
President	Barack Obama
Preceded by	Daniel Poneman
Succeeded by	Dan Brouillette
Personal details
Born	Elizabeth Sherwood 1959 (age 61–62) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Jeffrey Randall
Children	2
Relatives	Ben Sherwood (brother)
Education	Harvard University (BA) Balliol College, Oxford (DPhil)

Previously, she was the 18th United States Deputy Secretary of Energy from October 2014 to January 20, 2017 and the 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.[3]

Early life and education

Sherwood-Randall's father, Richard E. Sherwood, was a senior partner in a Los Angeles law firm,[4][5] a patron of the arts in Los Angeles,[6] and a leader of the Asia Society and the Rand-UCLA Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.[7] She has one brother, Ben Sherwood.[8] She received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University, and a doctorate in international relations[9] from Balliol College, Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.[10] She and her brother, Ben Sherwood, were the first sister and brother to win Rhodes Scholarships.[8]

Her Harvard roommate was future United States Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker.[11]

Career

Early career

From January 1986 to September 1987, she served as principal advisor on all foreign and defense policy matters to then-Senator Joseph R. Biden, at the time ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Subcommittee on European Affairs.[12] In the Clinton administration, from 1994 to 1996, Sherwood-Randall served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia.[13] During this period, she led the effort to denuclearize three former Soviet states, for which she was awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service and the Nunn-Lugar Trailblazer Award.[14] From 1997 to 2008, she was a Founding Principal of the Harvard-Stanford Preventive Defense Project.  She was also a senior research scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation from 2000 to 2008.[15]

White House roles

During the first term of Barack Obama, Dr. Sherwood-Randall served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs on the White House National Security Council.[16] Her focus areas in that role were 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.[17]At the start of Obama's second term, she served as Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for Defense Policy, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Arms Control.[16] 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.[18][19]

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 September 18, 2014.[20] At the Department of Energy she launched a major initiative in partnership with leaders of the American electricity, oil and gas sectors to tackle emerging cyber and physical challenges to the power grid.[21] She placed significant emphasis on low-carbon power, stating in a 2016 address that "We need to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy and spur innovation and science and technology ... so that we can power the world with low-carbon power."[22] Sherwood-Randall noted in a Council on Foreign Relations speech in 2016 that an "all of the above" energy strategy meant clean energy and carbon capture and storage for fossil fuels.[23] [24]

Post-Obama administration

As of August 2018, she was a distinguished professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, with joint appointments at the Nunn School of International Affairs and the Strategic Energy Institute.[25]  She is also a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.[26] She advises national laboratories, energy investment funds and start-ups.[27]

In November 2020, Sherwood-Randall was a candidate for Secretary of Energy in the Biden administration.[28] In January 2021, she was named as Joe Biden’s Homeland Security Advisor.[2]

Publications

She has published widely on national security issues, mainly on U.S alliances and nuclear proliferation.[29] 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.[30] 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.[31] Most recently, she published "The Age of Strategic Instability: How Novel Technologies Disrupt the Nuclear Balance", in the July 2020 edition of Foreign Affairs. [32]

Personal life

She is married to neurosurgeon Jeffrey Randall. They have two sons, Richard and William.[33]

References

1. Marquis Who's Who on the Web
2. Sanger, David E. (January 13, 2021). "Biden to Restore Homeland Security and Cybersecurity Aides to Senior White House Posts". The New York Times.
3. "White House Announces New Coordinator for Defense Policy, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Arms Control". Retrieved September 7, 2015.
4. "Richard Sherwood, 64, Lawyer and Museum Chief". The New York Times. April 9, 1999. Retrieved May 12, 2009.
5. "Weddings/Celebrations; Karen Kehela, Ben Sherwood". The New York Times. March 30, 2003. Retrieved May 21, 2016.
6. OLIVER, MYRNA (April 9, 1993). "Richard Sherwood, Noted Arts Patron, Dies". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
7. Pace, Eric (April 9, 1993). "Richard Sherwood, 64, Lawyer and Museum Chief". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
8. "How to Succeed in Television: The rise and rise and rise of ABC's Ben Sherwood". New York Magazine. January 13, 2015. Retrieved May 21, 2016.
9. "FSI | CISAC - Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall". cisac.fsi.stanford.edu. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
10. "Rhodes Scholars: complete list, 1903-2015". The Rhodes Scholarships. Archived from the original on November 6, 2013. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
11. Sanger, David E. (July 8, 2014). "Obama to Pick Defense Aide for Energy Post". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
12. "Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall - Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts". Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
13. "Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall - Strategic Studies Institute". www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil. Archived from the original on September 22, 2015. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
14. "Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall". Markle | Advancing America's Future. September 15, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
15. "Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall". Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Retrieved October 30, 2020.
16. University, Harvard (December 21, 2020). "Elizabeth…". Center for European Studies at Harvard University. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
17. "Bio from Testimony of the Honorable Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall to the House Armed Services Committee" (PDF). docs.house.gov. U.S. House of Representatives. June 25, 2015. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
18. Post, Karen DeYoung for the Washington. "Rivals united in operation to destroy Assad's chemical arsenal". the Guardian. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
19. Sherwood-Randall, Elizabeth (July 24, 2014). "Opening Statement Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee". Retrieved September 7, 2015.
20. "Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a Top White House National Security Council Official, Confirmed as Deputy Secretary of Department of Energy". Energy.gov. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
21. "Deputy Secretary Sherwood-Randall's Remarks at the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection -- As Prepared". February 13, 2015.
22. "Video: Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall: C3E Women In Clean Energy Symposium | LAI". www.leadingauthorities.com. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
23. "POLITICS: 'She's tougher than you.' Meet a top contender to lead DOE". www.eenews.net. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
24. "The Future of U.S. Energy Security: A Conversation With Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall". Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
25. "Former Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy Appointed to Georgia Tech". Georgia Tech - Strategic Energy Institute.
26. "Fellow: Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall".
27. "Book Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall".
28. "Who Are Contenders for Biden's Cabinet?". The New York Times. November 11, 2020. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
29. "Dr. Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall - Harvard - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs". belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
30. Sherwood, Ms Elizabeth D. (September 10, 1990). Allies in Crisis: Meeting Global Challenges to Western Security (First Printing ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300041705.
31. "Alliances and American National Security - Harvard - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs". belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
32. Sherwood-Randall, Elizabeth (July 21, 2020). "The Age of Strategic Instability". Foreign Affairs : America and the World. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
33. Department of Energy: "Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall Opening Statement Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee" July 24, 2014

External links

• Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall Deputy Secretary of Energy on Energy.gov
• Senate hearing for Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall's nomination for Deputy Secretary of Energy on energy.senate.gov.
• Appearances on C-SPAN