Daniel Chapman received his BA in both Psychology and Government & Political Affairs in 2013 from Millersville University. He received his PhD in Summer 2018 from our program. He is a post-doctoral fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and a research fellow in the Yale Law School. 

As an undergraduate he conducted a number of research projects on how different types of psychological threat influence public policy preferences. He also served as a research assistant for an initiative in Millersville University’s Center for Disaster Research and Education involving academic institutions in four countries seeking to collaborate on topics related to natural disaster risk reduction and resiliency.

Daniel’s current interests fall broadly at an intersection between social psychology, environmental conservation, and international relations. In one area of research he is exploring psychological factors that affect adaptive responses to resource scarcity, environmental conflict, and projected climate change impacts. One current focus of this work is to develop frameworks of individual and group-level processes related to risk perceptions, resource management, adaptive capacity and disaster resiliency. His research also examines how individuals prepare and respond, both individually and collectively, to large-scale disaster events and instances of localized environmental degradation. He also has additional research interests in the role of emotions in conflict resolution and methods for improving the effectiveness of post-conflict justice procedures.

Given the complexity and multidimensionality of these issues, he is actively engaging in and pursuing further interdisciplinary collaborations with researchers in environmental conservation, sociology, political science, and marine science, among others.

Daniel Chapman’s Webpage

Diala holds a Master's in clinical psychology from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, where she also taught, practiced clinical work, and worked with communities that have struggled through political conflict. She has worked as a volunteer relief provider and a psychosocial coordinator, organizing workshops on postwar trauma, conflict resolution, dialogue, and group mediation.

Her doctoral training has been in applied research within social, political, and clinical psychology, where she focuses on research that stems from intergroup conflict and group dynamics, with an emphasis on minority status groups and alliance-building between groups. Diala completed her Ph.D. in May 2014 and took a position in Fall 2013 at Clark University, as Visiting Assistant Professor of Social Psychology. As of Fall 2017, she is an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Psychology Program at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar.

Jaeshin received a Master's degree in Cultural Psychology from Korea University in South Korea. His research interests concern the roles that threat and fear play in promoting aggressive conflict. He was an intern and a consultant at the International Organization for Migration (IOM), South Korea from 2008 to 2009, and worked as a research associate in Karuna Center for Peacebuilding, USA from 2009 to 2010.

Jaeshin completed his Ph.D. in 2010 and is a research professor at the Center for Dispute Resolution at Dankook University, South Korea where he investigates conflict and dispute issues in Korean society. Particularly, he is committed to developing theory and practice in order to build a culture of peaceful resolution of conflict and dispute.

Katya studied foreign languages and cultures at Samara State Pedagogic University (Russia) and studied psychology at Indiana University-Purdue University (USA).  Katya has worked extensively with organizations promoting democratic values education in post-Soviet Russia and was one of the creators of educational programs on cultural tolerance for Jewish teenagers in Samara.  She has a keen interest in cross-cultural communication, humanistic pedagogy, democratic values, Arab-Israeli conflict, and the lessons of Holocaust. 

 Katya's current research concerns the facilitation of intergroup contact, trust, and tolerance in post-conflict societies.  She was also a part of a quantitative evaluation team for the Training Active Bystanders program, implemented by the Quabbin Mediation Center, which focuses on promoting social competence and active bystandership among secondary schools in Western Massachusetts.

She was selected as the 2012 James Marshall Public Policy Fellow from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. This fellowship allows her to conduct postdoctoral work in Washington DC for two years, in order to "contribute to the effective use of scientific knowledge about social issues in the formation of public policy."

Katya was placed working with representatives in Congress on the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, whose mission is "to promote, defend and advocate internationally recognized human rights norms in a nonpartisan manner, both within and outside of Congress, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant human rights instruments." She was working closely with Jim McGovern (D-MA), our congressional representative in western Mass and co-Chair of the Commission.

Katya recently accepted a position with the RAND Corporation (http://www.rand.org), where she now serves as an Associate Behavioral and Social Scientist. At RAND, Katya hopes to combine her expertise in both science and policy and to continue and expand her work on societies in transition and relations between racial, ethnic, and national groups.

Helen received her Masters in Violence, Terrorism and Security from Queen’s University, Belfast. Her thesis utilized a meta-analysis of approaches to analysing terrorist psychology in order to understand the cognitive evolution of an extremist—from initial experiences of political grievances to committing a violent act. During this time she conducted field research into insurgent tactics in Northern Ireland as part of a partnership with the University of California Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation. She has also worked at the UK’s leading children’s charity, Barnardo’s, policy and research department investigating child exploitation.

Helen’s current interests focus on the nature of morality and political violence, in particular the social and psychological factors which influence engagement with, and justification of, terrorism or alternative nonviolent social change. She is hoping that this research will lead to practical applications for peacebuilding and conflict transformation. She received her Masters from our program in 2015.

Rachel received her Ph.D. in 2016. She also holds a Master’s in Peace and Justice Studies from the University of San Diego. Prior to joining the Psychology of Peace and Violence Program at UMass she worked at the United States Institute of Peace for three years addressing governance and legal issues in Iraq and post-conflict justice and reconciliation in a variety of settings. She had also worked as a peace activist in Seattle and in the Philippines (with the Mennonite Central Committee) working alongside local peace-builders.

Currently, Rachel is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology at Hampshire College (2016-2017) teaching social psychology courses. Rachel has conducted two integrated lines of research on emotional and cognitive responses to intergroup provocations and to attempts at intergroup reconciliation. For example, her research has examined responses to terrorism and to undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Her dissertation research focused on beliefs of victim group members and perpetrator group members about reconciliation efforts made by the government (in Chile for political and racial violence and in the U.S. for a racial injustice). 

Johanna Ray Vollhardt holds a Diplom (equivalent to a Master’s) in Psychology from the University of Cologne, Germany) and received a Ph.D. in Spring 2009 through our program.

She is currently as Associate Professor of Psychology at Clark University, where she also directs the Social Psychology Ph.D. program, and is an affiliated faculty member of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Her research has focused on collective victimhood, including the differences between inclusive and exclusive victim consciousness and their consequences for intergroup relations, effects of acknowledgment versus denial of genocide and other forms of group-based violence on members of the victim group, and resistance during genocide.

Johanna was an intern with La Benevolencija's Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo reconciliation radio programs in 2005-2006 and worked with this NGO for a decade. In 2009, Johanna Ray Vollhardt was awarded the Gert Sommer Award for Peace Psychology and in 2010 the ISPP Best Dissertation Award. She is the co-founding co-editor of the Journal of Social and Political Psychology and has served on the Governing Council of the International Society for Political Psychology (ISPP). She was recently elected as Vice President of ISPP for a three-year term (2017-2020).