Moghaddam to Direct Conflict Resolution M.A.

The university announced the appointment of Fathali Moghaddam as the new director of the Master of Arts Program in Conflict Resolution, effective June 1, 2008.

“Fathali’s extensive and award-winning scholarship on culture, intergroup relations and conflict make him an ideal choice to direct this multidisciplinary program,” says Jane McAuliffe, dean of Georgetown College. “I am certain that under his direction this program will continue to build on and reinforce Georgetown’s traditional commitments to peace, outreach and ethics.”

Moghaddam, a professor of psychology and senior fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Policy, Education and Research on Terrorism, specializes in culture and intergroup conflict with particular focus on the psychology of globalization, radicalization and terrorism. His research and teaching interests include psychological processes associated with intergroup conflict, collective aggression, perceived injustice, terrorism, culture and democracy and policies for managing diversity.

“Compared with our advances in medicine and engineering, we have achieved very little progress in the vital area of managing human conflict. Conflict resolution is the greatest challenge confronting humankind in the 21st century, and the mission of the Georgetown Conflict Resolution Program is to help meet this challenge,” says Moghaddam.

The two-year master’s program’s small size allows for an intensive and focus on practical skills and academic excellence. Housed in the government department, the multidisciplinary degree also offers core courses in the Department of Psychology and at the McDonough School of Business. Elective courses are taught in departments across campus, and most students take courses in dispute resolution at the Law Center.

Before joining Georgetown University in 1990, Moghaddam worked for the United Nations and McGill University in Montreal. Born in Iran and educated in England, he returned to his native country in 1979 to conduct research. While there he witnessed the hostage-taking crisis and the early years of the war between Iran and Iraq.

Moghaddam has conducted experimental and field research on intergroup relations in numerous cultural contexts and has published extensively on conflict, justice and culture. He has published 16 books and more than 100 papers.

In the last two years Moghaddam has served as an invited keynote speaker at national meetings of the American Psychological Association, The Canadian Psychological Association, as well as at international meetings of the International Society for Research on Aggression and the Asian Association for Social Psychology. The American Psychological Association’s Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence awarded Moghaddam the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award.

The professor succeeds Lise Morjé Howard, who served as director of the program since it enrolled its first class in 2005.

Source: Blue & Gray

April 28, 2008