PON welcomes the 2008-2009 recipients of the Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellowships
Mohamad Al-Ississ
Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Al-Ississ has a BA with honors in Economics from Harvard College, an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University, and a Masters in Public Administration in International Development from Harvard University. His research focuses on understanding the economic and financial impact of Middle Eastern conflict, the prospects for conflict resolution in the region, and the role of trust building in mitigating existing conflict and preventing future escalations. Al-Ississ’ professional experiences include working as a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, serving as a senior advisor to Jordanian ministers of Industry and Trade, and managing a portfolio of USAID projects in Jordan.
Zev J. Eigen
Ph.D. Candidate
Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Eigen's work focuses on contractual relationships between individuals and organizations. Part of his dissertation research, entitled "The 'New Negotiation Dance’: Perceived Enforceability of Form-Adhesive Agreements & Its Effects on Post-Agreement Behavior & Dispute Resolution,” investigates the relationship between individuals' experiences with, and interpretations of, form-adhesive agreements and their behavior when actual disputes arise over real transactions in which they have engaged. (Form-adhesive agreements are those offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, such as end-user license agreements or mandatory arbitration agreements.) Eigen is developing and validating a measure of perceived enforceability of form-adhesive agreements to be used in analyzing the way that individuals most commonly "negotiate" with organizations that require them to sign forms dictating the terms of exchange. Eigen holds a JD from Cornell Law School and a BA with honors from Cornell University in Industrial and Labor Relations.
Michelle I. Gawerc
Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology
Boston College
Gawerc's dissertation, entitled “Peace-building through People-to-People Initiatives: The Israel-Palestine Case,” is a 10 year longitudinal study of all the major peace-building initiatives with an educational encounter-based approach in Israel and Palestine during both times of relative peace and times of acute violence (1997-2007). She examines how non-governmental peace-building initiatives adapt to radically changing environments, the challenges they face, and why some are able to adapt and survive while others are not. Additionally, Michelle will be developing an argument from the data about the external impact of these organizations on the larger political and cultural reality. Gawerc has an MA in Sociology from Boston College, an MA in Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame, and a BA summa cum laude in Prejudice and Intercultural Communication from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
B. Kelsey Jack
Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Jack's research focuses on incentives for the private provision of public goods in developing countries, with a focus on environment and public health. Current research projects investigate allocation mechanisms for conservation contracts in Indonesia and Malawi, incentives for the distribution of public health products in Zambia, and sustainable food choices in Harvard's dining halls. Her research uses experimental methods and draws on theory from environmental and behavioral economics and contract theory. Jack graduated with an AB magna cum laude from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and is currently a doctoral research fellow in the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, the Sustainability Science Program, and the Center for International Development.
Heather Pincock
Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science
Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts (PARC), Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University
Pincock has an MA in Political Science from Syracuse and a B.Hum. with highest honors from Carleton University, Ottawa. In her dissertation, Heather examines the educative effects of participatory deliberative processes by focusing on the case of community mediation. She explores the claims made by mediation advocates and deliberative democrats that the primary value of deliberative processes is their potential to change the skills, disposition, and knowledge of participants in ways that make them better and more capable democratic citizens. Through empirical focus on community mediation, she hopes to bring research and theory about the effects of democratic deliberation into productive conversation with research and theory in negotiation and dispute resolution. |
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