Chris Straw

Chris Straw is a Lecturer and Associate for the Masters of Science Program in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution (NECR) where she teaches Introduction to Negotiation and functions as an associate for Fundamentals of Conflict Resolution and Applying Conflict Analysis. Her conflict resolution practice includes work as a mediator, group facilitator and conflict coach. She co-leads workshops focused on mediation, conflict and emotional intelligence at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies where she is an adjunct professor, and for national non-profit organizations. Program work with the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict and Complexity (AC4) at the Earth Institute, Columbia University focused on application of systems theory to conflict.

Chris’s work in the conflict resolution field follows over two decades in the government, private, not-for-profit and education sectors in a variety of senior management and operational positions where she learned first hand the challenges of effectively collaborating within and across teams, departments and organizations. She has worked with the Department of the Navy in logistics management; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation leading information systems development projects; and as a management consultant with Perot Systems. 

Her interests include conflict and emotional intelligence, conflict and team dynamics and understanding conflict and collaboration as interconnected complex systems of factors. She has presented at conferences including The International Association of Conflict Management (IACM) and the Association of Conflict Resolution (ACR) on research on conflict and team dynamics, conflict systems and on conflict and emotional intelligence. She and a colleague are currently researching team conflict dynamics using simulation modeling in association with the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MD-ICCCR) at Teachers College, Columbia University.