Tricia Jones

Tricia S. Jones is a Professor of Communication and Social Influence and Director of the Center for Conflict Management and Media Impact at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. As past Vice-President and Member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Conflict Management, past President of the International Association of Conflict Management, and Curriculum Design Consultant for the American Bar Association Section on Dispute Resolution she has consistently advocated for conflict education and systems design that helps build constructive communities. Her work in conflict management spans 35 years of teaching, research and practice in conflict resolution intervention, conflict resolution education, alternative dispute resolution, intercultural conflict, and organizational dispute system design. She focuses significantly on designing conflict education and dispute resolution interventions, systems, and professional development in K-12 environments and urban communities to support students, families, communities and educators.

Since 2013, Dr. Jones has worked with the New York State Community Dispute Resolution Centers (CDRCs) infusing conflict coaching interventions into the 62-county CDRC network overseen by NYUCS Office of Court Administration. This work has helped develop conflict interventions in special education dispute resolution as well as in criminal court diversion programs, youth-based programs, re-entry programs, small claims disputes and family conflicts. Similarly, she has partnered with the Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration and the Maryland Office of Dispute Resolution (MACRO) to build capacity in their statewide systems.  Her recent work with Maryland community mediation centers is building youth-based conflict coaching training and programs for embedding coaches in middle and high schools.

Dr. Jones partners with the New York Dispute Resolution Association’s (NYSDRA) by providing conflict coaching training in special education dispute resolution and family empowerment under funding from the New York State Education Department (NYSED).  She has also worked with NYSDRA since 2016 in a 9-year Americorps project developing youth-based conflict coaches working in K-12 schools throughout New York state.

In 2023 she was invited to support the California SELPAs – regional associations to support families and individuals dealing with special education dispute processes and systems -- in developing a conflict coaching cohort and considering best practices for infusing conflict coaching as a special education dispute resolution process to reduce the personal, family and economic costs of special education dispute escalation.

Dr. Jones is the Project Director of the Conflict Resolution Education in Teacher Education (CRETE) project funded for $2.8 million by the U.S. Department of Education’s FIPSE program (Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education), Gund Foundation, JAMS Foundation, and others since 2006. CRETE has trained over 8,000 in-service and pre-service teachers across the US.

She has received over $6 million in external funding from federal and state agencies and private foundations including a recent 2022-2025 Department of Justice grant for $1.7 million to teach conflict education to systems-involved middle and high-school youth for youth empowerment and violence prevention. She has authored 8 books, 80+ articles and book chapters and has given more than 300 presentations at national and international conferences. Her recent book, Intercultural Communication: A Peace- building Perspective (2023) was used by UNESCO as a Foundation for a global six-part symposia series in fall 2023 on Intercultural Competencies and Peace-building. She is currently writing Media and Social Conflict (Rowman Littlefield, in process) and The Heart of Conflict: Emotion Theory and Impact in Conflict Processes (Sage, in process).

Her conflict consulting work has focused on training, intervention, and research programs for government agencies, higher education, health care and state offices of dispute resolution. She works with federal agencies including Department of Defense, Department of State, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Emergency Management Association, National Institutes of Health, Department of Justice, Department of Education, United States Air Force, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Bureau of Printing and Engraving, National Mediation Board, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, Department of the Interior, National Archives and Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.

She has the honor of serving as a senior consultant working in dispute system design for the United Nations’ Ombuds and Mediation Services and for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Ombuds and Mediation Service. She is working with the UN and the World Bank on designing continuing education initiatives in conflict coaching.

Dr. Jones served as a member of the Peace Education Reference Group for the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) and co-chaired the Peace Education and Conflict Resolution Education work group of the United Nations conference at the UN Headquarters in New York for 1,000+ government and NGO representatives from 60+ countries (2005). Dr. Jones was a member of the facilitation team for International Summits on Conflict Resolution Education that were hosted by national and international partners including the Organization of American States and the United Nations Development Program 2004-2010. In 1995-1997 she led a team of U.S. and South African educators in a United States Information Agency funded project building Community Peace and Safety networks in Johannesburg, South Africa following the initiation of the Mandela government and the end of apartheid.