Collaboration Faculty and Senior Associates

Steven L. Yaffee
Professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy

Steven L. Yaffee teaches courses in resource policy and administration, negotiation skills, ecoregional and public lands planning and biodiversity and public policy. Dr. Yaffee has worked for more than twenty years on federal endangered species, public lands and ecosystem management policy and is the author of Prohibitive Policy: Implementing the Federal Endangered Species Act (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982) and The Wisdom of the Spotted Owl: Policy Lessons for a New Century (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1994). He is the senior author of Ecosystem Management in the United States: An Assessment of Current Experience (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1996). His most recent work explores multiparty, collaborative problem-solving as a necessary element of an ecosystem-based approach to resource management, and he is the co-author of the new book, Making Collaboration Work: Lessons from Innovation in Resource Management (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2000). Dr. Yaffee received his Ph.D. in 1979 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in environmental policy and planning. He holds earlier degrees in natural resources from the University of Michigan. He has been a member of the faculty at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a researcher at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the World Wildlife Fund.

Julia Wondolleck
Associate Professor of Environmental Conflict Management

Julia M. Wondolleck teaches courses in environmental and natural resource conflict management, and negotiation skills in resolving environmental disputes. She was a member of the USDA Committee of Scientists that examined the national forest management process and recommended a new approach to planning, one grounded in principles of sustainability and pursued in a collaborative manner. With Steven Yaffee, she is the co-author of Making Collaboration Work: Lessons from Innovation in Natural Resource Management (Island Press, 2000). She is also the author of Public Lands Conflict and Resolution: Managing National Forest Disputes (NY: Plenum, 1988) and co-author (with James Crowfoot) of Environmental Disputes: Community Involvement in Conflict Resolution (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1990). Dr. Wondolleck received her Ph.D. in 1983 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in environmental policy and planning. She is particularly interested in the proactive application of alternative dispute resolution principles to conflicts involving public lands. Her current research focus is on the collaborative dimension of ecosystem management, and ways to ensure the accountability of collaborative processes when public resources are at stake.

Todd Bryan
Senior Associate

Todd Bryan has worked in the environmental and natural resources field for 22 years and has spent the last 10 years as a mediator, trainer and organizational consultant. Todd works with federal, state, and local agencies, tribal governments, nonprofit organizations, and communities throughout the West. He specializes in developing collaborative approaches to natural resource and environmental management. He is part of an innovative training team that is helping BLM develop collaborative partnerships that integrate ecosystem management and community-based land stewardship. Todd is an adjunct assistant professor in the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado-Denver where he teaches courses in negotiation and conflict resolution and managing conflict and change. He has also taught negotiation and mediation courses in the School of Natural Resources & Environment at the University of Michigan, where he is a third-year doctoral student. Todd's dissertation research is on the Quincy Library Group. Todd has a Master of Public Administration degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and MS degrees in landscape architecture and water resources management from the University of Wisconsin. Todd is the principal of ASSENT, a small mediation, training, and consulting firm in Boulder, Colorado and Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Sarah McKearnan
Senior Associate

Sarah McKearnan has spent eight years working as a professional facilitator and trainer in the environmental field. She is currently a research associate at the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources & Environment focusing on eco-regional planning and decision making for recovery of the Pacific salmon, working with Seattle's endangered species recovery team. Simultaneously, she is completing a dual master's degree program in the Schools of Natural Resources and Environment and Public Policy. Before returning to graduate school, Sarah was a Senior Associate at Consensus Building Institute, a nonprofit organization in Massachusetts that provides mediation and facilitation services to public agencies, nonprofit organizations and industries in the United States and abroad. While at CBI, Sarah facilitated multiparty dialogues on land use, facility siting and other environmental and public policy issues. She served on the faculty of the International Programme on the Management of Sustainability, and coordinated the design of programs to train the staffs of public agencies and non-profits in consensus-building skills. She was the editor of Consensus magazine for four years; and is co-author (with Lawrence Susskind and Jennifer Thomas-Larmer) of the Consensus Building Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Reaching Agreement (Sage Publications, 1999). Sarah's undergraduate degree is in government from Harvard University.

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