Sherwood-Randall received a bachelor"s degree from Harvard University, and a doctorate in international relations from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar at.
Her Harvard roommate was future United States Department of Commerce, Penny Pritzker.
Previously, she was 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. Among her duties was leading the United States. response to destroy the Syrian stockpiles of chemical weapons during the Syrian Civil War. 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.
Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall was nominated by President Barack Obama to be on July 8, 2014, and was confirmed by the United States Senate on 18 September 2014.
