This free virtual workshop is designed to help aspiring conflict resolution professionals step into the workforce with confidence and build meaningful connections. Facilitated by three professionals with diverse backgrounds in academia, law, and conflict resolution, this interactive workshop will explore strategies for navigating job opportunities, making the most out of your student experience, and cultivating a strong network in the field. The speakers will also address what it’s like to encounter age bias as a young professional and discuss different ways to respond to it.

Whether you're a student preparing for your career or an emerging professional looking to establish yourself, this session will provide practical tools to boost your confidence and foster valuable relationships in the conflict resolution community.

This workshop is co-presented by ANCoRS and the Association for Conflict Resolution’s Greater New York Chapter.

SPEAKERS

KRYSTA HARTLEY | NICK POZEK | JULIA VASSILEVA 

Krysta Hartley is an Assistant Deputy Counsel for the New York State Unified Court System’s Division of ADR, where she consults on ADR education and training, data collection and reporting, and ADR programs and development. Krysta has also worked in civil and family courts as a law clerk handling legal issues raised in complex civil term motions and mediations and settlement conferences with counsel and pro se litigants in various areas of the law.

She is an adjunct professor at Cardozo School of Law for the ADR Field Clinic and Mediation Clinic, where she previously served as Fellow for the Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution, as well as Editor in Chief of the ADR Competition Honor Society. In addition, Krysta trained as a mediator in both the Mediation and Divorce Mediation Clinics while at Cardozo, and serves as a board member of the Association for Conflict Resolution's Greater New York Chapter (ACR-GNY). She received a B.A. in Political Science from Boston University and J.D. with a Certificate in Dispute Resolution from Cardozo School of Law.

Dr. Nick Pozek is a mediator, award-winning educator, and president of the greater New York chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR-GNY). His mediation practice focuses on disputes around cultural governance and the restitution of cultural heritage. He is also the Assistant Director of the Parker School of Foreign & Comparative Law at Columbia University.

He is vice chair of the Board of Trustees of Global Community Charter School—an International Baccalaureate school in Harlem—and past chair of the Committee for Intellectual Property of the College Art Association. He serves. He serves on the advisory boards of educational organizations, including Actionable Innovations Global, Immersed Global, and the Global Studies Research Network. He is also an active member of Mediators Beyond Borders, the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS), and the Association for Asian Studies.

Julia Vassileva is currently a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University's Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4) for the 2024-2025 academic year. She is also a research fellow in International law and Security studies at Tallinn University, Estonia, where she is finalizing her PhD. At Columbia University, she is continuing her independent research on women's leadership and empowerment in peace negotiations in the post-Soviet space, focusing on wars/conflicts in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, and Ukraine. She builds on extensive data she collected while working as a lecturer and researcher at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs in Tbilisi, the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy/ADA University in Baku, the Armenian State University of Economics in Yerevan, Bilkent University in Ankara, and the Moldovan Platform for Security and Defense Initiatives in Chisinau.

Julia holds an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, a Magister iuris Law degree from the University of Vienna, and an MA in EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies from the Collège d'Europe. She has worked for the EU Commission, the EU’s Diplomatic Service (EEAS), and collaborated with various NATO centers. Recently, she was a researcher at the UN’s International Law Commission in Geneva and New York, a Visiting Associate Professor at the Graduate Law School of Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan, and a visiting researcher at the National University of Singapore's Centre for International Law.

Workshop Planning Committee:

Sarah Farber (ACR-GNY Student Ambassador)

Karin Okada (ANCoRS Project Management Officer)

Coco Wen (ACR-GNY Student Ambassador)

Date: Thursday, March 27, 2025
Time: 1:30 - 2:45pm (Eastern Time)
Cost: Free

Location: Online via Zoom

Pre-registration is required.

Contact us at questions@acrgny.org

This program is supported by ACR-GNY's 365 Sponsor:

ACR-GNY & CUNY Dispute Resolution Center at John Jay College present

Recognizing and Responding to Shame in Mediation

This session will provide an opportunity to explore how and why shame can significantly influence the outcomes of disputes. Recognizing and responding to a sense of shame in a variety of disputes will be discussed. Examples from this talk will be drawn from Katrina Abatis’s publication, Inviting the Elephant into the Room: Culturally Oriented Mediation and Peace Practice, which was inspired by Dr. Elsheikh's work.

DR. ZAZA JOHNSON ELSHEIKH

Zaza Johnson Elsheikh is a CEDR Faculty member and a Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Mediators (IAM). She is also accredited as an International Commercial Arbitrator through the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb). As a mediator, Zaza offers a unique blend of professional experience as a medical doctor (1994), a clinical negligence solicitor (2004) and Extremist Ideology Rehabilitation Mentor (2019). She was the Senior Partner at Commercial and Medical Dispute Solutions LLP where she ran a busy clinical negligence/end-of-life, commercial, family, probate, schools and workplace mediation practice based in Dartford, UK for 15years.

In 2021, Zaza decided to develop an international mediation practice informed by the breadth of her mediation experiences in the UK as a commercial, family, workplace mediator and her mediation skills training achievements abroad. She actively promotes the growth of alternative dispute resolution services for all communities, and in particular, Sulh(a) a traditional form of dispute resolution used in many countries in the Far East, Asia, Middle East and North African regions.

As a Muslim faith leader, who is influenced by her mixed cultural and religious heritage, Zaza has promoted the use of dispute resolution as an early intervention for disputes between and within faith groups through the charity Belief in Mediation and Arbitration (BIMA) which she co-founded in 2012 with multi-faith mediators and arbitrators. She has also developed seminars on "faithful dispute resolution" and "faithful leadership" which benefit mediators and leaders working with international faith communities.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The Roundtable Breakfasts are online meetings via Zoom. The link will change each month and will be distributed to all registrants the day before and the morning of the event. All listed times for ACR-GNY events are for Eastern Time. 8:00 am – 8:30 am | Join call to network with attendees 8:30 am – 10:00 am | Presentation and Discussion About the Roundtable Breakfasts The Roundtable Breakfasts are organized by ACR-GNY and the CUNY Dispute Resolution Center at John Jay College. They take place the first Thursday of the month and are ongoing since 2001. Views expressed in connection with any Roundtable event publicity or at sessions are those of the speakers and participants and not of the CUNY DRC or ACR-GNY. This program is supported by ACR-GNY's 365 Sponsors: