NEW YORK — Wendy Sherman’s early career as a social worker and community organizer was excellent, if perhaps unlikely preparation for her current role as lead US Iran negotiator, said the veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering. “In every sense of the word, she has moved from dealing with those problems that individuals have in our society to the greatest challenges facing us on earth today,” Pickering observed, speaking Sept. 16 at an awards ceremony honoring Sherman as a recipient of the Jit Trainor Award for distinction in diplomacy at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. “She found the ability to move from one to the other.”

Sherman’s diverse career path — from community organizing in her native Baltimore to serving as chief of staff to then-Rep. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and then as Mikulski's campaign manager in her successful run for the US Senate — proved to be “strong preparation for successful diplomacy,” Pickering said, leading ultimately to Sherman’s stints as President Bill Clinton’s North Korea negotiator and now President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear negotiator.

“I am not someone who ever had a five-year plan,” Sherman said at Georgetown, revealing that she had “seized opportunities” along the way as they presented themselves. She did not allow herself to worry about whether she knew enough to take on the challenge at hand. “Skills are transferrable from one discipline to another.”

For Sherman, who for the past three years has served as under secretary of state for political affairs — the number four position at the State Department — public recognition of her diplomatic achievements does not come with much spare time for reflection. The nuclear negotiations with Iran that she leads on the US side resumed Sept. 17 in New York and are at a critical moment. Iran and six world powers are meeting to see if they can reach a final accord on Iran’s nuclear program by Nov. 24, despite key differences in the two sides’ terms for a deal.