Dorothy Della Noce is assistant professor of communication studies at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. She is also a fellow and a founding member of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation at Hofstra University School of Law, a think-tank devoted to developing resources on transformative mediation for practitioners and policy-makers, and the international hub for scholars and practitioners of transformative mediation. Dr. Della Noce has been active in the mediation field for more than a decade, providing mediation services and training, serving in leadership roles in various state and national organizations, conducting research, consulting on policy and program design projects, and participating in numerous grant-funded initiatives to move theory into practice.

As a member of the Institute’s research team, Dr. Della Noce conducted benchmarking research on court-connected mediation programs for the State of Florida, and focus group research for the U.S. Postal Service. For her dissertation, she conducted groundbreaking discourse analysis research on mediation practice, entitled, “Ideologically Based Patterns in the Discourse of Mediators: A Comparison of Problem Solving and Transformative Practice.” She is also a member of the research advisory committee for a grant-funded research project spearheaded by the Maryland Association for Community Mediation Centers.

Dr. Della Noce’s theory-to-practice work includes several major field-wide initiatives. She was a member of the team that designed the training materials, and trained the national corps of trainers, for the U.S. Postal Service REDRESS EEO mediation program. She was a coordinator of the Practice Enrichment Initiative, a grant-funded project to support mediation practice, training, and policy-making led by Baruch Bush and Joseph P. Folger. She was also a coordinator of the Training Design Consultation Project, an earlier grant-funded initiative led by Bush and Folger to support the development of original training materials for the transformative mediation framework. She is currently the director of the Institute’s Court-Connected Mediation Synergy Project.

In addition, Dr. Della Noce has conducted conflict-resolution education and training programs throughout the United States and abroad. She was a faculty member of the National Judicial College in Reno, Nev., from 1996 to 1999, and she has also taught at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary, Strauss Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law, and the Dispute Resolution Institute at Hamline University School of Law.

Dr. Della Noce’s research and writing interests include the ideology and discourse of conflict, transformative mediation, mediation policy, and the effects of institutionalization on mediation practice. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on these topics.

Dr. Della Noce is a past president of both the Academy of Family Mediators and the Virginia Mediation Network. She also was a member of the editorial board for Mediation Quarterly from 1996 to 2001. She earned her undergraduate degree from LaSalle College, her J.D. from Western New England School of Law, and her Ph.D. from Temple University.

Patricia McQueeney is an associate at Brinkley, McNerney, Morgan, Solomon & Tatum, LLP in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. She assists clients in the preparation and prosecution of U.S. and international patent, trademark and copyright applications.

Prior to becoming an attorney, Ms. McQueeney served as a patent examiner for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, where she was responsible for examining patent applications for bio-affecting compositions, such as nanotechnology and drug dosage delivery forms, and issuing patents in connection therewith. Ms. McQueeney also spent several years working in the pharmaceutical industry, starting in quality control, moving into research and development and ending her experience in regulatory affairs.

Ms. McQueeney is a member of the Florida Bar, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the American Bar Association, the Broward County Bar Association, and currently serves as the treasurer of the Intellectual Property Law Association of Florida. She also is a member of the steering council for the Metro Broward Technology Enterprise Center, which provides a wide array of services to startup technology companies in Broward County.

Ms. McQueeney is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. She received her B.S. in chemistry from Dickinson College and her J.D. cum laude from the University of Baltimore.