Graduate Research Fellows

2009-2010 Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellow

Sreedhari D. Desai
Ph.D. Candidate in Organizational Behavior, University of Utah

Sreedhari’s research investigates how individuals behave in organizations, with a focus on ethical decision making and fairness. Her dissertation, entitled, “Warding off organizational vampires: Moral cues and social norms as a necklace of garlic,” examines the possibility of offering employees a safe way in which they may prevent their superiors from asking them to perform unethical acts. Specifically, she investigates whether employees may dissuade their superiors from issuing unethical directives by exposing them to cues related to ethics. If displaying cues such as moral quotations at the bottom of emails, pictures of ethical leaders in one’s cubicle, or religious accessories on one’s person can trigger implicit psychological processes in superiors’ minds such that without realizing it, they feel discouraged from asking their subordinates to engage in unethical acts, then the latter may have a way of saying “no” without fearing subsequent retaliation. Sreedhari holds an M.S. in Finance from the University of Utah and a B.S. in Metallurgical engineering from the Punjab Engineering College.

2008-2009 Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellows

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.

2007-2008 Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellows

Dipali Mukhopadhyay
Ph.D. Candidate Fletcher School, Tufts University

Mukhopadhyay’s research explores the possibility of warlords (as non-state armed actors) as state-builders in a modern post-conflict environment, specifically focusing on how this role has evolved in Afghanistan. Her hypothesis is that warlord actors may have opportunities to contribute to the government of a post-conflict state. She will identify and analyze state-building processes that have included constructive warlord involvement. Mukhopadhyay interned in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where she prepared a major policy brief on the reconstruction process in Afghanistan. She was also a researcher at the Aga Khan Development Network in Afghanistan.

Andrea L. Strimling
Ph.D. Candidate Fletcher School, Tufts University

Strimling’s dissertation focuses on inter-organizational coordination in social change, and the key role of negotiation in this process. She argues that the complexity of global problems and the associated need for inter-organizational and interdisciplinary coordination requires new approaches to theory and practice. Strimling is a co-founder of the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), as well as a current member and former chair of its board of directors. She has also extensively published and taught on the role of negotiation in inter-organizational coordination.

2006-2007 Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellows

Ariel Avgar
Ph.D. Candidate Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations

Avgar’s dissertation, Treating Conflict: Dispute Resolution in the Healthcare Industry, will examine the organizational outcomes associated with different dispute resolution strategies and practices in hospitals. He has conducted an in-depth case study of a unique dispute resolution program initiated by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services in a large unionized hospital in Ohio. Avgar plans to conduct comparative research among other hospital sites during his time at PON.

Alexandra Crampton
Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology and Social Work University of Michigan

Crampton is examining the meaning of empowerment in the mediation context, how mediation programs empower older adults and their families to reduce conflict and improve decision-making, and how elder mediation programs are similar and different in Ghana and the United States. Her dissertation is entitled Mediation as Intervention in Elder Advocacy: A Comparison of Mediation and Old Age in Ghana and the United States. Additionally, Crampton will study how mediation programs can be adapted given variation in sociocultural and economic contexts.

Fiona Greig
Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy and Doctoral Fellow Center for International Development at Harvard University

Greig’s work focuses on gender inequality, behavioral economics, and international development. Her PON research proposal, entitled Optimizing Employment in the Prime of Life: The Constraints and Opportunities of Negotiation, investigates the role of negotiation in the career advancement and choices of women in a field setting – a major investment bank. Greig is exploring the degree to which propensity to negotiate differs according to gender and whether it is associated with the probability to leave the investment bank, advance to the executive level, and experience greater job satisfaction and happiness.

Carmit Tadmor
Ph.D. Candidate Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley

Tadmor’s thesis, Biculturalism: The Plus Side of Leaving Home? The Effects of Second-Culture Exposure on Integrative Complexity and its Consequences for Overseas Performance, delineates the factors that affect the adoption of specific acculturation strategies. It focuses on the power of second-culture exposure to stimulate integratively complex cognitions that give people the flexibility to shift rapidly from one cultural meaning system to another. Tadmor proposes a model that outlines the underlying mechanisms that determine acculturation choice and that produce both individual difference and situation variation in integrative complexity of social functioning.

2005-2006 Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellows

Catherine Ashcraft
Ph.D. Candidate Environmental Policy Group Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Catherine is studying transboundary environmental cooperation efforts, particularly negotiation as it concerns the joint management of international waterways such as the Danube and the Nile. Her research will examine the internal and external factors that affect innovation and entrepreneurship in ongoing transboundary river basin negotiation processes. Because most negotiations and institutional characteristics are non-quantitative in nature, Catherine’s primary source of data will be semi-structured interviews with key informants in the Nile and Danube River basins. Catherine attended the University of Pennsylvania where she received a B.A. in Biology and Philosophy of Science. She received a Masters in Environmental Science at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Catherine is also a founder of the PON Student Interest Group on Transboundary Water Management.

Daniel J. Benjamin
Ph.D. Candidate Department of Economics, Harvard University

Dan’s dissertation work, Fairness: From The Laboratory Into The Market, formulates a theory of transactional fairness preferences that explains how people behave in simple bargaining experiments in the laboratory. He applies this theory to explain a wide variety of empirical regularities about negotiation outcomes in labor markets. In addition to explaining negotiation behavior, the theory has normative implications for how negotiators can advantageously frame possible agreements.

Dolly Chugh
Ph.D. Candidate Department of Psychology & Harvard Business School

Dolly is a graduate student in the joint Ph.D. program in Organizational Behavior and Social Psychology at Harvard University/Harvard Business School, and is a member of the Implicit Social Cognition laboratory in the Psychology department (known as the Banaji Lab). Dolly uses the experimental methods of psychology to study questions of organizational and managerial interest. Her current research focuses on the ethical and organizational implications of unintentional bias (such as implicit racial bias). She graduated from Cornell University with a double major in Psychology and Economics and from the Harvard Business School with an MBA.

Mara Hernandez
Ph.D. Candidate Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Mara’s dissertation work focuses on the effect of negotiation processes on notions of fairness. Previous research has found that egocentric notions of fairness that stem from biased perceptions of reality constitute a major obstacle for conflict resolution and may lead to impasse in a number of different settings. In her earlier work, Mara found that face-to-face negotiation may lead to the reduction of egocentrism as parties converge to shared notions of fairness. She is now investigating the conditions and mechanism that allow such convergence and reduce the negative effects of egocentrism. Mara has also pioneered teaching negotiations and conflict resolution in Mexico, where she sees the development of these skills as central to strengthening democratic values and citizenship. She holds a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. in Economics.

Yuval Procaccia
S.J.D. Candidate Harvard Law School

Yuval’s dissertation, Optimal Legal Enforcement of Precontractual Commitments, uses an economic framework to explain how enforceable precontractual promises can be designed to solve the holdup problem, while generating both optimal investment and optimal trade. It then proceeds to examine alternative legal methods of enforcement, analyzing the impact of various remedy measures on the parties’ incentives to promise, invest, and trade. Yuval received his B.A. and M.A. in economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his LL.M. at Harvard Law School. He also clerked at the Supreme Court of Israel and worked as a Legal Assistant in the Israeli legislature.

2004-2005 Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellows

Zvi Altman
S.J.D Candidate Harvard Law School

Zvi’s dissertation is entitled Breaking the Barriers of Convention: Towards a Multilateral Legalistic Dispute Settlement Procedure for Resolving International Tax Disputes. He argues that the current system - based solely on negotiation between tax authorities - is sorely inefficient in resolving such conflicts and fails to achieve the ultimate purpose of tax treaties. Zvi contends that a multilateral institution applying a multi-stage process based on consultation, arbitration, and adjudication would provide a better forum for dispute settlement. He intends to support his conclusions by way of a cost benefit analysis based on alternative dispute resolution scholarship, institutionalist international relations theories, past experience, and empirical analysis of various international dispute settlement procedures. Zvi’s academic background includes degrees in law and economics from Bar-Ilan University in Israel. He has published extensively in academic journals and popular newspapers in both Hebrew and English.

Nava Ashraf
Ph.D. Candidate Harvard University, Department of Economics

As a PON fellow, Nava will continue her dissertation work on the dynamics of decision-making in conditions of poverty and distress. Through an experimental study she is conducting in the Philippines, Nava seeks to better understand the nature of conflict between spouses with differing spending preferences, in order that policymakers might craft more balanced and sustainable poverty-reduction programs in the developing world. In isolating the factors that contribute to household conflict, Nava hopes to advance awareness both about sources of intra-household conflict and bargaining power, and about prospective dispute resolution mechanisms to address such conflicts. While an undergraduate, Nava interned at the World Bank and helped spearhead the development of a negotiation strategy for Morocco in the Year 2000 Trade Negotiations with the European Union. Her honors thesis on Mercosur and the European Union, and subsequent work on NAFTA, focused on the role that scripts and public international commitment play in multi-national negotiations, as a way of resolving individual countries’ conflicting domestic interests about an appropriate future national path.

Ian Wadley
Doctoral Candidate, JSD, Boalt Hall School of Law University of California, Berkeley

Ian’s dissertation, entitled Contested Transboundary Natural Resources - The Common Good and Common Goods, examines the evolution of international regimes relating to transboundary natural resources and identifies the key fault-lines that have made these issues particularly resistant to resolution. He advances recommendations for the formulation of dispute resolution mechanisms and management regimes by state, inter-state, and non-state actors in order to foster the peaceful management of transboundary natural resource disputes and the enhancement of domestic and international rule of law. Ian possesses degrees in law and commerce from Murdoch University in Perth, Australia. He has completed graduate work at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. A native of Australia, Ian was awarded the inaugural Rotary International Foundation Peace Scholarship for 2002-2004.

2003-2004 Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellows

Amal Jadou
Ph.D. Candidate The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

In her dissertation, entitled The Role of the United States as a Mediator in the Palestinian Israeli Negotiations under Clinton, Amal seeks to describe the negotiation and mediation process in the 1990s between Palestinians and Israelis, with particular attention to the role of the United States during these negotiations. Amal received her M.A. in International Studies from Birzeit University in the West Bank city of Ramllah, where she wrote her thesis: Histories of Occupation: Comparing Processes and Outcomes in the Case of the Cherokee and Palestinian Nations. Before her doctoral studies, Amal attended Bethlehem University. In addition to her academic studies, Amal has worked with various conflict resolution and peace organizations, including the Peace Research Institute of the Middle East, the Palestinian Prisoner Society, the Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center-Wi’am, the Local Public Committee for Refugees in Aida Camp, and the Laji’ Center for Refugees. Amal ultimately seeks to continue her involvement in Palestinian politics by taking a leadership role on the Legislative Council, an ambition grounded in her belief in the importance of law and legislation in changing the nature of political systems in the Arab World. Through her fellowship with the Program on Negotiation, Amal will continue to research and write her analysis of the Middle East negotiations in the 1990s.

Elizabeth Long Lingo
Ph.D. Candidate, Program in Organizational Behavior and Sociology Harvard University and Harvard Business School

As a PON fellow, Elizabeth will continue her research and writing on how social context influences, and is shaped by, negotiation interactions. Through both ethnographic interviews and non-participant observation, Elizabeth will explore the recursive relationship between culturally defined roles, identity and interpersonal interactions. Her dissertation, Negotiations and Lovesongs: Negotiating Social Order in the Country Music Industry, will analyze negotiations among producers and other participants in the country music industry. Elizabeth is in the joint Ph.D. Program in Organizational Behavior and Sociology at Harvard University and Harvard Business School. She first came to Harvard as a doctoral student in business administration (DBA), with a focus on marketing. Elizabeth transferred from the DBA program to the Ph.D. program in 1999. She worked in a variety of business settings before pursuing her graduate and doctoral studies and continues to consult with organizations on issues regarding trust and voice. She is currently working with Harvard Business School Professor Kathleen McGinn on the final stages of a paper examining how improvisations mediate the effect of group structure and communication media on negotiation outcomes, including trust and group identification. This work also introduces a coding scheme for analyzing the relational, procedural and informational aspects of negotiation interactions. Elizabeth is also working with Penn State Assistant Professor Jim Detert on a paper examining courage in organizations. Elizabeth’s research and writing has included creating the negotiation case, Shaded Glen Logging Company and The Town of Silva, writing the chapter The Hampton Inn 100% Satisfaction Guarantee in Extraordinary Guarantees, Achieving Breakthrough Gains in Quality and Customer Satisfaction, and assisting in researching and writing Growing the Trust Relationship in Marketing Management.

Jennifer L. Schulz
S.J.D. Candidate, Faculty of Law University of Toronto

Jennifer’s dissertation, Creating Mediator Identity? Conflict Resolution and Film, is based on multi-disciplinary, theoretical research and is a qualitative, semiotic study of the role of popular culture in developing understandings of conflict resolution and mediator identity. Jennifer seeks to contribute to dispute resolution theory by advancing her hypothesis that popular culture is instrumental in shaping the mediative role and mediators’ identities as conflict resolvers. Her academic background includes a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Manitoba, and an M.Phil. in Legal Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, St. John’s College. At Cambridge, Jennifer completed her thesis and combined anthropology and LL.M. courses to study the intersection of law, culture and dispute resolution processes. She is currently an S.J.D. candidate at the University of Toronto and holds an appointment as Assistant Director of the LL.M. in ADR Program at Osgoode Hall Law School. Before commencing her S.J.D. Jennifer practiced as a mediator and designed and taught dispute resolution courses in various university settings, culminating in a full time assistant professorship at the Faculty of Law, University of Windsor from 1999-2002, where she earned “Professor of the Year” honors. Jennifer has written a number of chapters and articles on mediation and conflict resolution, including: Cultural Individualism, Collectivism, and Conflict Resolution Preferences in ADR & the Law, Obstacles to Tortious Liability for Mediator Malpractice in the Supreme Court Law Review, and Mediator Liability in Canada: An Examination of Emerging American and Canadian Jurisprudence in the Ottawa Law Review.

2002-2003 Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellows

Gabriella Blum
S.J.D. Candidate Harvard Law School

Gabriella’s dissertation is entitled, Between War and Peace: Managing International and Intrastate Armed Conflicts. Her ultimate goal is to offer a theoretical framework for the design and implementation of conflict management regimes within armed conflicts, using tools from international relations scholarship, as well as theories of negotiation, conflict studies and game theory.

Pacey Foster
Ph.D. Candidate Boston College

Negotiation and social network scholars share an underlying interest in how social relationships affect exchange processes. Despite this fact, insights from embeddedness and negotiation research remain largely disconnected. Pacey’s dissertation, The Impact of Social Factors on Negotiations in Embedded Markets, will link negotiation and network theories by exploring how different kinds of social relationships impact partner selection and negotiations in a local cultural industry. The research will contribute to negotiation theory by focusing on how attributes of dyadic relations and network structures combine to affect partner selection decisions and negotiations in an actual market. It will advance network scholarship by considering the contingent value of ties among buyers and between buyers and sellers on exchange behaviors. It will contribute to cultural industry research by examining how gatekeepers use their social networks to manage decision-making in markets characterized by risk and uncertainty. Before beginning his Ph.D. in Organization Studies, Pacey spent ten years working in mediation and conflict resolution programs including the Harvard Mediation Program, the American Arbitration Association, JAMS/Endispute and the Program on Negotiation. His work included management and administration, training, research and mediation in contexts ranging from community disputes to a national class action settlement. While his primary research interests are in negotiation, social networks and cultural industries, Pacey has also been a long time practitioner of action research and is interested in applying these techniques to the resolution of real world conflicts.

Kessely Hong
Ph.D. Candidate Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Kennedy School of Government

Kessely is working with Professor Keith Allred on a project involving a jurisdictional conflict between the Nez Perce Indian Tribe in Idaho and local non-Indian governments. Her research identifies an important distinction between constituents and officials (not only in terms of their own opinions but also in how they are perceived by the other side). For her dissertation Kessely proposes to extend this line of research to other contexts in order to gain a richer understanding of what factors influence the actual and perceived differences in opinion between constituents and officials, and what factors influence the degree of offensiveness vs. defensiveness of conflict participants. Aida Othman Ph.D. Candidate Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Aida’s present research is an inquiry into Islamic approaches to peace and dispute resolution and their influence in contemporary conflict management discourse. The tentative title of Aida’s dissertation is Resolving Disputes in Islam: Perspectives on Classical Theory and Contemporary Practice.

2001-2002 Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellows

Michèle Ferenz, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT
Stephen Garcia, Department of Psychology Princeton University
Gregg Macey, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT
Avishalom Tor, Harvard Law School
Noam Wasserman, Harvard Business School

2000-2001 Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellows

Brian Blancke, Syracuse University
Jason Corburn, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Chang In Shin, Penn State
Hannah Riley, Harvard Business School
Joshua Weiss, George Mason University