Leah Wing, Director

Director, National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution
Senior Lecturer II, Legal Studies Program, Political Science Department, University of Massachusetts/Amherst (USA)
Co-founder and 2023 President, Board of Directors, International Council for Online Dispute Resolution.

Leah heads the Ethical Principles for Online Dispute Resolution initiative of NCTDR and serves on the ABA Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Standards Taskforce and the ABA Technology Committee. Leah has taught dispute resolution since 1993 and served as a researcher on early experiments in online dispute resolution. Leah is on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution and of Conflict Resolution Quarterly, served two terms on the Association of Conflict Resolution Board of Directors, and is on the advisory board of ODREurope. Leah is the founding director of the Social Justice Mediation Institute.

Leah’s present ODR research projects focus on: ethical principles and standards, disaster response, digital harm doing, and technologically assisted divorce. She has participated in interdisciplinary research funded by the National Science Foundation:

  • The Fourth Party: Improving Computer-Mediated Deliberation through Cognitive, Social and Emotional Support
  • Process Families and their Application to Online Dispute Resolution
  • Process Technology for Achieving Government Online Dispute Resolution

Leah’s recent ODR publications concentrate on ethics and the critical examination of conflict transformation theory and practices in both the online and offline worlds:

Leah is also particularly interested in the role that technology, geography, and art play in conflict and its resolution and she directs the Center’s Art of Conflict Transformation program. She is presently collaborating with partners from several nations on the development of online archives and exhibition space for conflict-related art as part of conflict transformation processes.

Beyond research and teaching, Leah has been a mediator and trainer for educational institutions, government agencies, and non-profits since 1983. Leah has received the:

  • Award for Distinguished Service to the Field of Conflict Resolution, Association for Conflict Resolution
  • JAMS Award for Outstanding Publication in the Field of Conflict Resolution Education for Recommended Standards for School-Based Peer Mediation Programs, (contributing editor).
  • Kuumba Award in Appreciation of Support and Efforts in Promoting Opportunities in the Field of Alternative Dispute Resolution for Minority Professionals, Capital University Law School, Minority ADR Program, Columbus, Ohio
  • Chancellor’s Award for Multiculturalism, University of Massachusetts Amherst
  • University Distinguished Teaching Award, University of Massachusetts Amherst
  • College of Social and Behavioral Sciences College Outstanding Teaching Award, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Without coding fairness and equality into artificial intelligence (AI), it won’t emerge as an outcome. NO CODE, NO JUSTICE.