Goodman received a Bachelor of Arts degree in engineering and applied physics from Harvard University in 1958 and Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1960 and 1963, respectively.
In 1996, he stepped down as chairman and assumed the position senior associate dean for faculty and academic affairs in the school of engineering.
[5] During the academic year 1973–1974, he was a visiting professor at the Institut d'Optique, Orsay, France.
He was elected a director-at-large of the OSA for the years 1972–1974; he also served on the board of directors ex officio while he was chairman of the publications committee, and while he was editor of the Journal of the Optical Society of America (1978–1983).
[5] For the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, he chaired an ad hoc committee on Optical and Electro-Optical Systems in 1969, has served on the editorial board of the Proceedings of the I.E.E.E.
In 1984, he was elected to a three-year term as vice president of the International Commission for Optics (ICO), a commission affiliated with the International Union for Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP).
In 1971, he was chosen the recipient of the Frederick Emmons Terman Award of the American Society for Engineering Education.
degree from the St. Petersburg (Russia) the National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics.
[5] Goodman has served as a director of several corporations, including Optivision, Inc. (of which he was a co-founder), ONI Systems (for which he was the founding chairman of the board), and E-TEK Dynamics.