Profiles

Harry Anastasiou holds advanced degrees in conflict resolution and international relations. His interests focus on international and inter-ethnic peace and conflict studies in the Eastern Mediterranean and the European Union.  For decades, he has led peace-building initiatives among Greek and Turkish citizens in Cyprus. This work led to several leadership roles in the region and beyond, including the Institute of World Affairs in Washington, D.C., and as a lecturer for the World Affairs Council.

Harry has researched and published widely in the field of conflict resolution/transformation on the theme of nationalism, peacekeeping, and technology in world affairs, notably in the post 9/11 context.  He designed a digital Peace Map for Rotary International that tracks peace resources world-wide.

Amanda Byron holds advanced degrees in Educational Leadership and in Intercultural Management. She is an associate professor in Conflict Resolution and also directs the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Project.  Her courses focus on ethnoreligious conflict, enmification, and peace education (CR 442/542). She has decades of experience working with diverse communities to heal trauma and to transform conflict.

Amanda's work also involves violence prevention, storytelling as engagement in democratic practice, and the role of creativity in the practice of conflict transformation. Most recently, she created a graduate certificate in Genocide and Atrocity Prevention, available to PSU students in the fall of 2021.

Rachel Cunliffe holds advanced degrees in Social and Political Science, Educational Psychology/Reading, and Special Education. She has taught about education since 1984 when criminal justice activism prompted research on the death penalty in Oregon in the late 1990s. In 2004, she developed courses based on her learning as well as on her interest in restorative and non-violent responses to extreme violence. Rachel runs a Compassionate Listening Project with those entangled in the death penalty system. She is trained as a mediator and facilitates victim-offender meetings and Circles (healing, talking, learning). 

Rachel's research includes restorative androgogies, online education, restorative justice, program evaluation and the death penalty. She is a quilter, a metaphor for our lives as stitched.

Rob Gould holds advanced degrees in philosophy and in teaching. He grew up in Portland and became active in peace issues in the Vietnam War era.  In 1984 and co-founded the Oregon Peace Institute with Congresswoman Elizabeth Furse.

Through the early 1990s, Rob taught at several campuses around Portland. With Mary Zinkin, he co-founded the Conflict Resolution graduate program at Portland State in 1996 and served as director until 2015. Rob teaches courses with an ethical/values focus, such as Forgiveness & Atonement (CR 419/519) and Evil & Hate (CR 416/516). He is currently at work on a conflict resolution textbook, tentatively titled Navigating Differences and Dilemmas. He is also an avid runner, bicycler, and mountain climber.

Tom Hastings holds degrees in Peace Studies, Mass Communication, and Education. He joined the PSU faculty in 2000 and serves as Undergraduate Program Coordinator for Conflict Resolution. He directs PeaceVoice, an editorial/news service provided by the Oregon Peace Institute. He has written eight books including Meek Ain't Weak: Nonviolent Power and People of Color (2002); The Lessons of Nonviolence (2006); and A New Era of Nonviolence (2014).

Tom is 35-year nonviolent activist for peace, justice and environmentalism, and a Plowshares veteran of three prisons. He is a past chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Association and serves on the Academic Advisory Council of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. He was named Peace Educator of the Year in 2017 by PJSA. He is a co-founder of the Portland Peace Team. 

Patrick Hiller holds advanced degrees in Conflict Analysis & Resolution and in Human Geography.  He is an interdisciplinary scholar with interests in war and peace; peace studies; environmental issues, nationalism, migration, and ethnicity & culture with a focus on Latin America. 

Patrick is the Vice-President of the International Peace Research Association Foundation and served on the executive committee of the Governing Council of the International Peace Research Association.  He has served on the Coordinating Committee of World beyond War and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Oregon Peace Institute. He is a member of the Peace and Security Funders' Group and a founding editor of the Peace Science Digest. In his free time, Patrick enjoys the outdoors and is a committed triathlete.

Vandy Kanyako holds advanced degrees in Conflict Analysis & Resolution, Peace Studies, and International Relations. He joined the PSU faculty in 2013 and is currently associate professor of CR. He is a founder and director of West Africa Oil Watch, a civil-society initiative that fosters accountability among petroleum companies. Vandy's award-winning activism involves the rehabilitation of child combatants during Sierra Leone's civil war and several initiatives involving the United Nations in New York City. 

Vandy has researched and published on conflict and transitional justice in Sierra Leone and Nigeria.  His work has appeared in Africa Today, Journal of Peace Support Operations, and the Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis.  His PSU courses focus on the role of civil society and global human rights.

Aislyn Matias holds a BA from the Evergreen State College and MA in Global Leadership and Sustainable Development from Hawaii Pacific University. She came to PSU in 2017, and is the Lead Staff & Coordinator in Conflict Resolution. Aislyn is also an avid organic gardener and is a competitive outrigger canoe paddler. 

Patricia is an historian who joined the PSU faculty in 1995.  She is serving a three-year term as interim director of Conflict Resolution, through September 2021. 

John Shuford's research interests fall under the umbrella of hate studies. Within this field, he investigates the legal, social and moral/psychological operation of various movements and individuals, mostly within the United States. He is a former editor of the Journal of Hate Studies and was a co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Hate, published by ABC-CLIO.  In addition to his academic training, John holds a J.D. and has consulted with numerous governmental and media sources over the years on the topic of hate.  He is adjunct assistant professor of Conflict Resolution at Portland State University

Barbara Tint holds degrees in political psychology and conflict resolution.  She joined the PSU faculty in 1999 and is currently a full professor. Barbara also serves as affiliated faculty at the University of Oregon Law School's dispute resolution program.  She has decades of experience in global settings with dialogue and reconciliation processes, notably in refugee/diaspora contexts and including efforts supported by Mercy Corps, Rotary International, and Fulbright.  

Recently, Barbara's focus is the use of applied improvisation for the training of humanitarian and aid workers, the development of organizational leaders, and in everyday settings of human conflict.   

Molly Wallace holds advanced degrees in Political Science and serves as a contributing editor of Peace Science Digest. Her interests include nonviolent action; unarmed civilian peacekeeping; conflict transformation; military desertion/defection; transitional justice; and the "Responsibility to Protect" in post-colonial contexts. Her work has appeared in Critical Studies on Security, Global Society, and International Politics.  Molly's book Security without Weapons came out in 2017.

Molly volunteers as a facilitator with Multnomah County's restorative dialogue program and previously volunteered as a mediator with the Community Mediation Center of Rhode Island. She has also worked as a facilitator with the James Lawson Institute and as an editor with the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.