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  • » Mediation Services: A Community Resource for Conflict ResolutionPage description: A Community Resource for Conflict Resolution
  • » Newsletters & Media CoveragePage description: Mediation Services in the News
  • » Highlights from our 25th Anniversary BanquetPage description: 2 Our 25th Anniversary Celebration and Fundraising Banquet
  • » About Our SpeakersPage description: Bio Dr. Sean Byrne and Dr Jessica Senehi

    • About Our Speakers

    Dr. Sean Byrne

    Dr. Byrne is Professor and Director of Arthur Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice St. Paul's College, University of Manitoba. He was Director of Doctoral Programs in the Department of Conflict Analysis and Resolution (DCAR) at Nova Southeastern University (NSU), Ft. Lauderdale before he moved to Winnipeg. Dr. Byrne was the 2000-2001, and 2002-2003 School of Humanities and Social Sciences Professor of the Year, and was nominated by graduate students for NSU Professor of the Year (among 5 out of 555 NSU faculty).Dr. Byrne earned his Ph.D. in International Relations from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University.

    He has done conflict intervention work in communities in Bosnia, and Northern Ireland as well as in Ft. Lauderdale. He was the 1994-95 Theodore Lentz International Peace and Conflict Resolution research fellow at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and a 1997 co-recipient of a United States Institute of Peace research grant, with Dr. Cynthia Irvin, to explore the role of external economic aid in the peacebuilding process in Northern Ireland. Dr. Byrne is former vice-president of the International Sector of the Society for Professionals in Dispute Resolution (SPIDR). He was also co-chair and board member of the Network in Community Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution (NCPCR), and with Dr. Jessica Senehi, co-newsletter editor of the Peace Studies section of the International Studies Association (ISA).

    He is also the past Editor-in-Chief of the journal Peace and Conflict Studies. He has published a number of book chapters, as well as scholarly articles in the areas of third party intervention, ethnic conflict analysis and resolution, and youth and conflict. Also, Dr. Byrne is the author of two books Growing Up in a Divided Society: The Influence of Conflict on Belfast Schoolchildren (1997) Associated University Presses, and with Cynthia Irvin (2000) Reconcilable Differences: Turning Points in Ethnopolitical Conflicts, Kumarian Press.

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    Dr. Jessica Senehi

    Jessica Senehi is Associate Director of the Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice at St. Paul's College. Previously she was assistant professor of conflict analysis and resolution at Nova Southeastern University in Florida. She has served as a volunteer mediator in her communities, and conducted leadership workshops for adolescent girls. She has published several articles on the role of storytelling in conflict and peace-building, and is currently working on a book manuscript, Constructive Storytelling: Building Community, Building Peace. She received her Ph.D. in Social Science from Syracuse University.