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About Us

About the Collaboratory

The Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Collaboratory connects students, faculty, and practitioners to advance the art and science of negotiation. We create cutting-edge research and tools, convene leaders across disciplines, and equip changemakers worldwide with the skills to tackle their most pressing challenges—from climate diplomacy and conflict transformation to campus dialogue and beyond.

History & Mission

In 2016, the Kennedy School Negotiation Project, NCRC’s predecessor, was launched on the belief that you can’t lead if you can’t negotiate. It drew on more than thirty years of Professor Brian Mandell’s research and innovative teaching at Harvard Kennedy School. Today’s public leaders face increasingly complex problems that require cross-boundary, collaborative leadership. At our core, our mission was, and remains, to equip next-generation practitioners with a comprehensive toolkit and repertoire of negotiation skills to tackle the world’s toughest problems.

In 2020, we became the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Collaboratory, a name that reflected a broader mission: building a collaborative laboratory — a “collaboratory” — for studying, innovating, practicing, and discussing the art and science of negotiation and conflict resolution.

Within HKS, we redoubled our efforts to connect students with real-world practitioners and sharpen their analytic and interpersonal negotiation skills. We advanced our programming so students could practice beyond the classroom, apply tailored frameworks to their own challenges, and engage with frontline negotiators around the world.

Today, we are taking that mission beyond the doors of HKS. We work with groups around the world: from those seeking to end active conflict, to those bridging partisan division, to those building more effective teams. And we are opening access to our teaching materials, making our cases and simulations available to anyone who wants to use them in their own classroom or with their own team.

Our work rests on three core pillars:

Participants collaborate at tiered tables during a working session.

We Create

Conduct research on effective skill-building for negotiations and negotiation theory and skills. Distill cutting edge research into toolkits and frameworks that people can apply immediately and practically. Expose and create synergies by seeking inspiration in different academic fields and practice. Innovate on teaching methods.

A classroom filled with multiple small working groups running negotiation simulations.

We Convene

Create spaces for others for co-learning, inspiration, reflection, and community building. Enable collaborative spaces between people who usually do not engage collaboratively with each other. Learn from and innovate with others by convening interdisciplinary and intersectoral fora.

Students in a classroom face a presentation screen during a lecture run by Joan Moon.

We Equip

Train everyday extraordinary people from various sectors, age groups, backgrounds, and identities through interactive formats that meet them where they are and help them achieve their goals.

Team

Faculty Chair

Brian Mandell

Brian Mandell is the Mohamad Kamal Senior Lecturer in Negotiation and Public Policy, Vice Chair for Executive Education for the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and the Faculty Chair of the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Collaboratory at the Harvard Kennedy School. His teaching and research emphasize third-party facilitation and consensus building in domestic and international protracted policy disputes. He is recognized for his ability to distill complicated theories into accessible insights, earning a reputation for his intellectually rigorous courses. Before joining Harvard, Brian taught at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa and worked as a strategic analyst for the Canadian Department of National Defense, specializing in UN peacekeeping and arms control implementation. A Pew Faculty Fellow and a key faculty member at Harvard’s Program on Negotiation and the Center for Public Leadership, he is also a Senior Research Associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Brian Mandell earned his PhD from the University of Toronto.

Director

Monica Giannone

Monica Giannone is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and the founding Director of the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Collaboratory (NCRC) at the Center for Public Leadership. She teaches negotiation and leads projects on climate diplomacy, value-based conflict, and power in negotiation. At NCRC, Monica co-leads Turn the Tide, an inter-university collaboration that equips hundreds of climate negotiators and changemakers each year with the skills to advance climate action in high-stakes forums. She also directs Why It Worked, a global research initiative examining how some of the world’s most protracted conflicts have transitioned to durable peace, producing practical tools such as the Propeller Toolkit and contributing to a Negotiation Journal Special Issue. Her broader work spans teaching, curriculum design, and training for governments, foundations, and organizations worldwide, focusing on how negotiation can drive durable agreements and meaningful change. She is a core instructor in numerous Executive Education programs including the Negotiation Strategies Executive Education program at HKS. Giannone holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a BA in Political Science and Religion from Wake Forest University.

Fellow

Aditya Bhayana

Aditya Bhayana is a Fellow at the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Collaboratory (NCRC) at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he trains and coaches young diplomats on negotiation strategy for COP meetings and other multilateral forums. His work integrates AI into negotiation coaching, training, and real-time decision-making, and he leads efforts to expand Turn the Tide (NCRC’s open-source negotiation capacity building platform) to universities, educators, and practitioners worldwide.

Previously, Aditya has advised on sustainable development negotiations at the G20 and worked on net-zero pathways at the World Bank. He holds a Master in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School, was a Young India Fellow at Ashoka University, and earned a BA in Management Studies from the University of Delhi.

Senior Fellow

Alan Trager

Alan Trager is a Senior Fellow and longtime member of the Harvard Kennedy School community. A former Visiting Lecturer and Senior Fellow at the Center for Business and Government and an HKS MPA graduate, he brings decades of leadership across academia, public service, and the private sector. His work has centered on advancing public-private partnerships to tackle complex global challenges, with a particular focus on healthcare and global development, drawing on experience with institutions including Johns Hopkins, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization.

Program Coordinator

Sam Talamini

Sam Talamini is the Program Coordinator for the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Collaboratory (NCRC) at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. He manages the day-to-day operations of NCRC’s programs and projects, coordinates logistics for trainings and events, and supports the team’s research, communications, and outreach efforts. Sam works across all of NCRC’s initiatives helping to ensure that programs run smoothly and reach the communities they are designed to serve.

Fellow

Thilo Kerkhoff

Thilo Kerkhoff is a Fellow at the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Collaboratory (NCRC). He graduated from the Master in Public Policy Program (MPP) at Harvard Kennedy School. He studied law at Bucerius Law School Hamburg and the National University of Singapore, and is a fully-qualified German lawyer. Before coming to Harvard, he has worked as an administrative secretary to arbitral tribunals, in international law firms and the German Chancellery. Thilo is a mediator at the Harvard Mediation Program and a Fellow at the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School.