Sarah Cobb

Professor

Professor, conflict analysis and resolution

Dr. Sara Cobb, (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, Amherst) is the Drucie French Cumbie Professor at The School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR) at George Mason University, where she was also the Director for 8 years. In this context she teaches and conducts research on the relationship between narrative and violent conflict; she is also the Director of the Center for the Study of Narrative and Conflict Resolution at S-CAR that provides a hub for scholarship on narrative approaches to conflict analysis and resolution. Formerly, she was the Director of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and has held positions at a variety of tier one research institutions such as University of California, Santa Barbara, University of Connecticut, and more recently at the University of Amsterdam. She has also consulted to and/or conducted training for a host of public and private organizations, including UN High Commission on Refugees, UNDP, La Caxia Bank, and Exxon, the American Bar Association, Fox Learning Academy as well as a number of universities in Europe and Latin America. Dr. Cobb is widely published. Her book, Speaking of Violence: The Politics and Poetics of Narrative in Conflict Resolution offers a narrative perspective on both conflict analysis and conflict resolution. She has been a leader in the fields of negotiation and conflict resolution studies, conducting research on the practice of neutrality, as well as the production of “turning points” and “critical moments” in negotiation processes. Some of this research is based on case studies from her field research in Guatemala, Chile, Rwanda and the Netherlands. The blend of academic research, program development, and practice enables Dr. Cobb to develop research projects that can yield practical understanding and generate effective interventions.