Psychology of Peace & Violence Concentration

Why do group relations become hostile and how can cooperation and the peaceful resolution of conflict be promoted? This concentration offers a unique opportunity for researchers and students to focus on the psychological dimensions of issues related to ethnic and identity-based conflict, violence, social justice, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding. The concentration, the only one in the U.S. to offer a PhD in peace psychology, has a long history of post-conflict restorative justice and reconstruction as well as strengths in the psychology of diversity, discrimination and conflict. It offers myriad opportunities for collaborative efforts across a variety of disciplines that will capitalize on its strengths as SBS moves forward.

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Public Policy Leader Focuses on Science, Technology and Society Initiative
Among the outstanding new faculty who joined the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UMass Amherst in 2005 is Jane E. Fountain, formerly associate professor of public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government for 16 years. As director of SBS’s Science, Technology and Society Initiative in the Political Science Department and the Center for Public Policy and Administration, she will promote multidisciplinary collaboration among the natural, physical and social sciences, engineering, and public policy.
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