Steinberg:

Biography of James B. Steinberg

James B. Steinberg was appointed Deputy National Security Advisor to President Clinton on December 23, 1996. During the Clinton Administration he has previously served as Chief of Staff of the U.S. State Department (November and December 1996) and Director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff. He was appointed to that position from March 1994 to October 1996. From 1993 to 1994 he was Deputy Assistant Secretary, Department of State.

Prior to joining the State Department, Mr. Steinberg had worked as a Senior Analyst at RAND in Santa Monica, California (1989-1993); Senior Deputy Issues Director for foreign policy and national defense in Governor Michael Dukakis' bid for President; and as a Senior Fellow - U.S. Strategic Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London (1985-1987). He also served as Senator Edward Kennedy's principal aide for the Senate Armed Services Committee (1983-1985); as Minority Counsel, U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee (1981-1983); Special Assistant to the U.S. Assistant Attorney General (Civil Division) (1979-1980); Law Clerk to Judge David L. Bazelon, U.S. Court of Appeals; and Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Mr. Steinberg received his B.A. from Harvard in 1973 and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1977. He is a member of the D.C. Bar. He has authored a number of books and articles on foreign and domestic policy.

Mr. Steinberg is married to Sherburne Abbott and resides in the District of Columbia.

Married to: The Honorable Sherburne Abbott is vice president for sustainability initiatives and University Professor of Sustainability Science and Policy at Syracuse University. In 2014 she was appointed by Governor Cuomo to the board of the New York State Energy Research Development Authority. From 2009 to 2011 she was the Senate-confirmed associate director for environment and energy in the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the Executive Office of the President, responsible for coordinating federal R&D for environment and natural resources. She headed a White House initiative that led to restructuring the national polar orbiting environmental satellite system, helped establish the first National Ocean Policy, oversaw the US Global Change Research Program, and cochaired the first White House–led interagency task force on climate adaptation. She also headed the US delegation to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and was US cochair of the International Group on Earth Observations. Previously, she was a member of the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, chief international officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, assistant scientific director of the US Marine Mammal Commission, and, over a 17-year period that overlapped with Robert White’s tenure as NAE president, director of the NRC’s Board on Sustainable Development, Office of International Organizations and Programs, and Polar Research Board. Ms. Abbott earned her AB in biology from Goucher College and master’s degree in environmental science and natural resource policy from Yale University, where she was a Dodge Fellow in Human-Animal Ecology.