Speaker Bios

Plenary Speakers

Mitchell R. Hammer, Ph. D

Mitchell R. Hammer, Ph.D. has achieved an international reputation as a social innovator, developing powerful ideas and innovative practices that improve people's lives throughout the world by addressing some of our most difficult social problems. Dr. Hammer is a person who propels social change at the intersection of cultural differences: Solving problems and resolving conflicts, building intercultural competence, and saving lives under conditions of violence and threat. He is a creative problem solver, moving conversations around racism and prejudice to cross-cultural understanding and empathy. He has transformed armed conflicts, interpersonal violence, and suicide situations into peaceful resolution. Dr. Hammer's personal involvement in difficult and often dangerous dialogue has resulted in healing where hurt festered, cooperative relations where mistrust existed, and safety in situations where violence dominated.

Dr. Hammer is the founder of several organizations that focus on intercultural competence development, conflict resolution, and critical incident management and crisis negotiation and resolution. He is also professor emeritus of International Peace and Conflict Resolution in the School of International Service at the American University in Washington D.C. His work spans a wide range of organizations including private corporations, not-for-profit organizations, state and local law enforcement agencies, and federal agencies, including NASA Johnson Space Center, The Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hammer's cutting edge work has resulted in (1) the Intercultural Development Inventory, an assessment instrument and process that is used throughout the world to build intercultural competence, (2) the Intercultural Conflict Style (ICS) Inventory, a theoretical model and assessment tool used by mediators, trainers, managers and counselors to bridge cultural differences in solving problems and resolving disagreements and conflict, and (3) the S.A.F.E. model of crisis negotiation used to de-escalate crisis situations (e.g., hostage, barricade, suicide) by federal and local law enforcement agencies as well as to manage social conflict in medical research testing controversial cancer therapies.

Dr. Hammer has served by appointment by the Director of the National Institutes of Medicine (NIH) as a Charter member of the Cancer Advisory Panel for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Dr. Hammer provided advisement on negotiation strategies concerning the hostage crisis in Peru to the Government of Japan as well as Japanese private-sector representatives who had employees taken hostage and has also advised negotiators involved in successfully securing the release of an American taken hostage in Latin America. Dr. Hammer has advised the Behavior and Performance Laboratory of the NASA Johnson Space Center for the International Space Station Program. on cross-cultural communication. In 1996, Dr. Hammer, along with four associates, identified a set of letters with the writing of the so-called "Unabomber Manifesto" helping identify Ted Kaczynski as the "Unabomber."

Dr. Hammer's book, Saving Lives (2007) presents a comprehensive explanation of the innovative S.A.F.E. approach for resolving crisis situations. His previous book, Dynamic Processes of Crisis Negotiation: Theory, Research and Practice (1997), was honored with the "Outstanding Book Award" in 1998 by the International Association of Conflict Management. He has published widely, with over 70 articles, and has won numerous awards for his scholarship from various professional organizations, including the "Senior Interculturalist Award of Achievement" by the Society of Intercultural Education, Training and Research. Dr. Hammer frequently provides expert analysis for the media, including NBC News, CNN, FOX National News, CTV in Canada, NHK television in Japan, Voice of America, Agence France Presse, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, USA Today and the Washington Post.

Mary Francis Winters

Mary-Frances Winters is president and founder of The Winters Group, a 26-year-old organization development and diversity-consulting firm, specializing in research, strategic planning, training, and public speaking with an emphasis in ethnic and multicultural issues.

Prior to founding The Winters Group in 1984, Winters was affirmative action officer and senior market analyst at Eastman Kodak Company, where she worked for 11 years. She is a graduate of the University of Rochester with undergraduate degrees in English and Psychology, and a master's degree in business administration from the William E. Simon Executive Development Program. She received an honorary doctorate from Roberts Wesleyan College in 1997.

Winters was selected to serve as Rochester Institute of Technology's College of Continuing Education's 1994-95 Distinguished Minett Professor where she taught a leadership course titled, 21st Century Leader: Visionary, Inspired, and Spiritually Grounded at the graduate level.

Among her other awards and honors, the Rochester Minority Enterprise Development Committee named Winters "Minority Business Person of the Year" in 1988. She was featured in the 1989 edition of Marquis "Who's Who in American Women," and was named the 1991 recipient of the Athena Award by the Women's Council of the Greater Rochester Metro Chamber of Commerce. In 1992 she was one of five women nationally to receive the Avon Products, Inc., and U.S. Small Business Administration's Women of Enterprise Award. In 1994 she received the Urban League's Outstanding Community Leader Award.  Winters was selected as one of Rochester's torchbearers for the 1996 Olympic Torch Relay. Phi Delta Kappa Education Fraternity presented Winters with its 1996 Research Award. In 1998 she was the recipient of the Hutchinson Medal, the highest alumni honor from The University of Rochester. In 2000, she was named Mother of the Year by the local March of Dimes. Winters was named a diversity pioneer by Profiles in Diversity Journal in August 2007.

A life member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Rochester, Winters has served on the boards of the Greater Rochester Metro Chamber of Commerce, The United Way of Greater Rochester and the National Board of the Girl Scouts of the USA. She is also a member of the National Speakers Association. Ms.Winters has served as a mentor for the Emerging Leaders Program Sponsored by the Centers for Leadership and Public Affairs at Duke University and the University of Cape Town, South Africa and is on the boards of American Institute for Managing Diversity and Mosaica and a former board member of The National Institute for the Blind.

Winters  is past chairperson of the Advisory Committee of the Greater Rochester Women's Fund, and past president of the Girl Scouts of Genesee Valley, Inc., and the Black Business Association of Rochester.  Winters was the 1994 General Campaign Chair for the United Way/Red Cross Campaign.

Winters has been a frequent contributor to the editorial page of the local newspaper and USA Today's Forum column on workplace and diversity related issues. She has been published in the International Personnel Management Association Newsletter, Profiles in Diversity Journal, Diversity Inc Magazine, Executive Excellence Magazine, Society of Human Resource Management's Mosaics Newsletter, The EMA Reporter and has written monographs on "Philanthropy Among People of Color" for the Council on Foundations in Washington, DC. She is the author of three books, Only Wet Babies Like Change: Workplace Wisdom for Baby Boomers, Inclusion Starts With "I" and CEO's Who Get It: Diversity Leadership from the Heart and Soul.

Winters is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, The Links, Inc. and Unity Center of Light Church in Bowie, Maryland.

Winters has two adult children. Her son, Joseph, is a graduate of Harvard, Duke and Princeton Universities. He is an assistant professor of religion at the University of North Carolina. Her daughter, Mareisha, is a graduate of Spelman College and Georgia Tech with bachelor's degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Masters degrees in Business Administration (MBA) and Information Technology. She is a software Engineer with Northrup Grumman.

Dr. Michael Vande Berg

Dr. Michael Vande Berg is Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE). Prior to coming to CIEE, he held leadership positions at several institutions that are unusually committed to the international education of their students: he was Director of International Programs at Georgetown University, Dean of Study Abroad at the School for International Training, Director of Study Abroad at Michigan State University and Director of the Center for International Programs at Kalamazoo College. He also served for several years as Director of English-Language Programs at the Instituto International in Madrid. He received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A former member of the National Nominating Panel of the National Security Education Program and former chair of NAFSA's Whole World Committee, he served on the Board of the Association of Academic Programs in Latin American and the Caribbean, and he is a founding and current Board member of the Forum on Education Abroad.

Dr. Vande Berg has authored a wide range of publications on international education topics, and on literary movements and authors, and he has published English-language translations of two classics of Spanish literature: Miguel de Unamuno's Love and Pedagogy, and Azorín's Castilla. He has been the Principal Investigator of a wide variety of study abroad research projects, including the federally-funded "Georgetown Consortium Study." He has served as Outside Consultant and Evaluator for several projects as well, including the University of Minnesota Curriculum Integration project and the University System of Georgia GLOSSARI project. He was Guest Editor of a special issue of Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad that focused on the assessment of student learning abroad. He is a member of the faculty at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication in Portland, Oregon. He frequently presents on intercultural education topics, and leads intercultural workshops, in the U.S. and abroad.

Conference Presenters

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