Announcing the 2010-2011 PON Graduate Research Fellows

By — on / Daily, Graduate Research Fellowships, PON Graduate Research Fellowships

The Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellowships are designed to encourage young scholars from the social sciences and professional disciplines to pursue theoretical, empirical, and/or applied research in negotiation and dispute resolution. Consistent with the PON goal of fostering the development of the next generation of scholars, this program provides support for one year of dissertation research and writing in negotiation and related topics in alternative dispute resolution, as well as giving fellows an opportunity to immerse themselves in the diverse array of resources available at PON.

We are very excited to have three new fellows join us this fall:

Lakshmi Balachandra
Ph.D. Candidate in Organizational Studies, Boston College

Lakshmi is a Phd Candidate at Boston College in Organization Studies. Lakshmi’s research focuses on how individuals decide to trust others, in particular in decision-making and negotiation situations. Her dissertation, entitled “Heuristics of Trust: Cues for Trust in Early-Stage Decision-Making” explores the specific behaviors and qualities that develop trust in entrepreneur/investor situations by using videos of entrepreneurs presenting to a group of angel investors and using their real-time investment evaluations. She explores trust through real world decision-making scenarios like videos from the MIT 100K competition or videos from a game show where trust dictates how much each contestant will receive. She has taught negotiation at a variety of business schools, currently at Harvard’s Extension School’s Management Certificate Program. She teaches a leadership course on improvisation at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where she received her MBA. She has a BA from the University of Chicago, and has been an entrepreneur, an investment banker, and a professional stand-up comedian.

Yehonatan Givati
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Economics, Harvard University; S.J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School

Yehonatan’s research focuses on explaining why different countries employ different legal institutions to resolve legal disputes. Specifically, he argues that the varying institutions and policies across countries can be explained by exploring the underlying preferences and circumstances of different countries. For example, why is plea bargaining commonly employed in some countries, while its use is heavily restricted in others? Yehonatan argues that that higher levels of crime and a greater social emphasis on ensuring that guilty individuals are punished lead to a greater use of plea bargaining, while lower levels of crime and a greater social emphasis on ensuring that innocent individuals are not punished leads to less use of plea bargaining. Like plea bargaining many other legal institutions balance competing values, but countries may weigh values differently. Thus, one should consider how these differences filter into the design of legal institutions across countries.

Linn Normand
DPhil Candidate in International Relations at the University of Oxford

Linn completed her BA degree in Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge followed by a year as a Herchel Smith Scholar at Harvard University. She obtained her MPhil degree in International Relations at the University of Oxford where she stayed on to pursue her doctorate. Her doctoral thesis investigates the phenomenon of demonization in international politics. As a PON pre-doctoral research fellow, her research will focus on the role hostile perceptions of the opponent play in constraining diplomatic attempts at conflict resolution and negotiations. Her case studies include US-Iran and Israel-Palestine.

Click Here for additional Information about our Graduate Research Fellowships.

The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School
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