HWS News
28 October 2025 President's Forum Welcomes Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman
From social worker to nuclear arms negotiator, Wendy Sherman brings her experience advancing and protecting human rights and U.S. interests to campus for the President’s Forum.
Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman has sat in negotiations across from the Iranians and North Koreans. And on Tuesday, Nov. 4, she joins the President’s Forum to discuss her experiences in diplomacy under three U.S. Presidents and five Secretaries of State.
Author, professor, social worker, presidential advisor and the country’s first woman U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Sherman has spent decades advancing rights at the local and global levels. On campus, she will share some of the lessons that shaped her approach to negotiation during the President’s Forum at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 4 in the Vandervort Room of the Scandling Campus Center. The talk is free and open to the public.
“We are honored to welcome former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman to campus,” says President Mark D. Gearan. “Her leadership reminds us that diplomacy is not only about policy, but about patience, empathy and resolve in the face of global challenges.”
A trailblazer for women in government and public service, the Baltimore native began her career alongside former Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate and later helped secure Madeleine K. Albright’s confirmation as the nation’s first female Secretary of State, later serving as Albright’s special advisor and consultant on major foreign policy issues.
From her early career as a social worker helping people in poverty and women who had been abused, her work spread beyond her native Maryland to Washington, D.C., where she became known for having conversations in hard places. That ability to bridge differences led her to politics. She directed Campaign ’88 for the Democratic National Committee, overseeing field and political operations. She then led Emily’s List, the premier organization supporting pro-choice Democratic women in politics. Her strategic direction was instrumental in expanding the organization’s reach and helping to drive the record number of women candidates who ran in 1992.
Her skills in diplomacy and consensus building were especially evident when she served as a special advisor to President Bill Clinton and Albright, helping to negotiate North Korea’s nuclear weapons deal. Under President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sherman was the principal architect of negotiations for the Iran Nuclear Deal, guiding a complex diplomatic process among the P5+1 nations, the European Union and Iran.
For her accomplishments, Obama awarded Sherman the National Security Medal. She wrote about her many lessons as Deputy Secretary in her book “Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power, and Persistence.” At the President’s Forum, she will offer students and community members insight into the delicate balance necessary in successful diplomacy.
Previously, Sherman served as Deputy Secretary of State for the Biden Administration, and as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and as Counselor for the State Department during the Clinton Administration. Before becoming Deputy Secretary, she was Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and a professor of the practice of public leadership.
In 2002, she became vice chair of The Albright Group, an international consulting firm she co-founded with Albright, which later became the Albright Stonebridge Group.
Previously, Sherman served as the founding president and CEO of the Fannie Mae Foundation, promoting homeownership and mortgage access, and directed Maryland's Office of Child Welfare, overseeing protective services, foster care, adoptions and group homes.
Sherman earned her B.A. cum laude from Boston University, followed by her master’s degree in social work, Phi Kappa Phi, from the University of Maryland. She is married to journalist Bruce Stokes and has a daughter and two grandsons.
Established in 2000 by President Mark D. Gearan, the President’s Forum brings a variety of speakers to campus to share their knowledge and ideas with students, faculty and staff, as well as with interested community members.
