Tzofnat Peleg-Baker is a social psychologist and a conflict resolution scholar-practitioner. She has been teaching, training, facilitating, consulting, and providing mediation and coaching services in the Middle East, Africa, and the US. She is an Adjunct Professor of Conflict, and Negotiation in the professional MBA program, School of Business at Rutgers University-Camden, where she also provides students with mentorship and coaching in dealing with professional and interpersonal conflicts.
As the head of the Dispute Resolution Center (CDRC) in Queens, NYC, she provided strategic and operational leadership and oversaw all services offered to over two million residents. She was the Head of Strategy at the Ministry of Justice, Israel, where she served on the national team that introduced ADR and mediation in the country. As a Board Member and facilitator in peace organizations, she designed and led collaborative-inclusive leadership programs and facilitated inter-group dialogues between religious and secular groups, Jews and Arabs, and Israelis and Palestinians. Democratic and dialogic educational reforms she was part of powerfully shaped a contextual-relational perspective to conflict she developed and has been implementing in teaching, training, and consulting. This practical approach incorporates reflective models to help identify and rise above underlying cultural, social-psychological barriers to effective decision-making and healthy relationships. Tzofnat also links her contextual-relational approach to the changing role of leadership today.
Tzofnat interest in conflict was sparked earlier in her career when she observed the harsh consequences of destructive conflict as a marketing executive in international corporations. She took upon herself a voyage to learn more about redirecting the trajectory of conflict so that it becomes an asset rather than an obstacle. Tzofnat volunteers in a few nonprofit organizations and associations dedicated to promoting dialogue, peacebuilding, and alternative approaches to conflict. She is a Board Member in the Oregon Mediation Association and a leader in Women wage Peace.
Tzofnat earned an MA in Communications from Indiana University and an MA and Ph.D. (ABD) in Psychology (conflict and mediation) from Rutgers University. She also holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Vrije University, Belgium (VUB), in cooperation with Taos Institute, US. The title of her dissertation is Conflict Transformation-from adversarial to dialogic relations: from division to co-creation to inclusion.
Please do not hesitate to connect with me at zoetzofnat.pelegbaker@pcc.edu
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Tzofnat (Zoe) Peleg-Baker, Ph.D.