Susan Podziba, Principal at Podziba Policy Mediation, has served as a public policy mediator for more than 30 years. Most of her projects include working with senior leadership of governments, representative stakeholders, civil society, and the general public. Her clients have included the United States Departments of Commerce, Defense, Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, and Transportation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Senate, U.S. Institute for Peace, United Nations, The World Bank, British Council, Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, Emilia Romagna Regional Authority of Italy, and Negotiation Strategies Institute of Jerusalem. She is listed on the United Nations Mediator Roster, is recipient of a National Partnership for Reinventing Government Award, and recently traveled to Bahrain to participate in the King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence conference, Ignorance is the Enemy of Peace.
Recently, she created a process design tool for World Bank mediators and assisted with the process design for a national economic policy dialogue in Sudan. Ms. Podziba is author of Civic Fusion: Mediating Polarized Public Disputes and Our City: From Corruption to Participatory Democracy as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles. Her projects have been reported on by the New York Times, The Washington Post, and major radio and television networks.
Ms. Podziba is director of the Sacred Lands Project and an expert for the course, Religion and Conflict Transformation, which is organized by SwissPeace at the University of Basel. She is faculty for the Program of Negotiation Advanced Mediation course, has served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Peace and Conflict Resolution, taught graduate seminars at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and guest lectures internationally. Ms. Podziba has a Master of City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied mediation and international conflict resolution, and a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.
Sub-specialties:
Polarization of the nation
Polarization on the issue of abortion
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Building Capacity for Meaningful Connection Across Difference
Conference: Ignorance is the Enemy of Peace Conference, King Hamad Centre for Peaceful Coexistence, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain -
Civic Fusion and the Hidden Connective Energies of Conflict
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School [January 20, 2022] -
Island Conversations #62–Sacred Lands Mediator Susan Podziba
KWXX (Hawaiian Public Radio) [March 8, 2020] -
Conflict, Negotiation, and Public Policy Mediation in the Trump Era
Negotiation Journal Volume 35, No. 1 [January 2019] -
We need action on personal cybersecurity
The Hill [January 17, 2019] -
Mediating conflicts over sacred lands
Conflict Resolution Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 3 [Spring 2018] -
Negotiated rulemaking for the Brownfields law in the United States of America
Diversity of Practices Across the World, edited by Catherine Choquette and Veronique Frazer, Montreal, Canada: SAGE [2018] -
From Certainty through Not Knowing to Curiosity
Negotiation Journal -
Civic Fusion: Mediating Polarized Public Disputes
American Bar Association [February 16, 2013] -
Safety Starts at the Top
New York Times [June 12, 2008] -
Negotiated Rulemaking Reaches Policy Goals, Limits Unintended Consequences
Bureau of National Affairs, Occupational Safety & Health Reporter [October 6, 2005] -
Our Cities: From Corruption to Participatory Democracy, IPOC 2017(Italian only)