Louisa Williams is executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Mediation Program, Inc., where she’s responsible for case coordination, administration, and mediator education and training. Most of her mediation work on Martha’s Vineyard and in Cambridge, where she is a member of Community Dispute Settlement Center’s family conflict panel, is in the area of divorce, but she also mediates small claims and civil cases. A former co-chair of the Massachusetts Trial Court’s Public Awareness Working Group, which designed and recommended a plan for increasing public awareness of ADR in the Commonwealth, she now serves on the Massachusetts Trial Court’s Standing Committee on Dispute Resolution. She graduated from Princeton University and has a master’s in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley. Before moving to Martha's Vineyard, she worked at the Boston Globe in a variety of editing positions, most recently as managing editor for newsroom administration.

Ruthy Kohorn Rosenberg, J.D. is the Student Mediation Coordinator in the Office of Student Mediation and Community Standards at MIT.  Her office is charged with developing mediation programs for the 6,000 graduate students and 4,000 undergraduates and the faculty and staff who work with them, and developing programming and educational oppportunities around conflict resolution.  Ruthy has more than 20 years experience as a mediator, teacher, university administrator, non-profit director and consultant.  She was the Director of Family Mediation Services at the Cleveland Mediation Cneter, and Assistant Dean, Academic Affairs in the Division of Biology and Medicine at Brown University.  She has trained and supervised mediators and has mediated divorce, custody, community, and inter-and intra-organizational disputes in a wide variety of settings.  Ruthy has a law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law and a Certificate in Non Profit Management from Case Western Reserve University.

Arline Kardasis is a mediator, trainer, ombuds and founding partner of Agreement Resources, LLC. and Elder Decisions. She mediates family disputes in the areas of eldercare and estate matters as well as marital mediation and divorce.  Arline has delivered workshops, seminars and trainings in a broad spectrum of settings, including: the American Bar Association, National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers, the Northeast Human Resources Association, and the Association for Conflict Resolution International.  She trains social workers, nurses and eldercare professionals in conflict resolution.  Arline has written about family mediation for Mediate.com and, with Rikk Larsen, she co-wrote "When Aging Issues Lead to Family Conflict" for Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.  Arline is a member of the massachusetts Council on Family Mediation and has served on the Public Awareness subcommittee for the Massachusetts Trial Court's Standing Committee on dispute Resolution.  Arline was trained at Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation and by the Center for Social Gerontology.  She has designed and delivered numerous advanced trainings in elder mediation for mediators from around the United States.  Arline received her BA in Political Science and Urban Studies from Boston University and her MAT with honors from Simmons College.

Anita B. Jones entered the field of mediation after taking basic and advanced mediation training at University of Southern Maine in Portland in 1993.  She founded Portland’s Community Mediation Center and was Executive Director for five years, ending in 2000.  In that capacity she provided training in Victim Offender Conferencing as well as coaching others to start community mediation centers in Maine.  She has training in victim-offender, severe and violent victim-offender, family, real estate, civil, divorce and small claims mediation.  She has been a guardian ad litem and coaches regularly in the USM mediation classes.  She has provided transformational mediation as a volunteer in Youth Alternative’s Family Mediation Program.  Anita’s practice now consists mostly of court appointed mediation services, being rostered on the CADRES roster for small claims and family matters cases.

Michele Gousie Geremia is a Mediator, Trainer and Human Resources Consultant, currently practicing in Bristol, Rhode Island.  She is the owner of mouthPEACE mediation.  Michele has a Masters Degree in Labor and Industrial Relations with a specialization in Alternative Dispute Resolution from the University of Rhode Island, and a Bachelors Degree in Social Work.  She received her mediation training at Mediation Works Inc. in Boston, including general mediation, divorce mediation, and summary process mediation.  She has been mediating for 3 years, serving as a volunteer mediator in the small claims courts, predominantly in Fall River and New Bedford, Massachusetts.  Her Human Resource experience of over ten years includes coaching and training on a wide range of workplace issues, including employee morale, team building skills, and employee/management relations.  She has experience in a range of environments, including financial, manufacturing and health care.  Michele holds the Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) certification.  She is an active member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Human Resource Management Association of Rhode Island (HRM-RI).

Mindy Milberg is a mediator, arbitrator, trainer, and attorney with a solo practice in Natick, MA, in the areas of divorce, employment, probate, business and personal injury. She serves as an arbitrator on the AAA Employment panel and the NASD panel, and as a mediator with the National Mediation Centers, Boston Bar Association's BMC panel and the Community Dispute Settlement Center. She is an NEACR Board member, President Elect and Co-chair of the Education Committee for NEACR.  Mindy Milberg can be reached at 508-655-6800 or by email at milberg@milbergmediation.com

Walt Bitler is a full time mediator and the owner of the Northeast Conflict Resolution Services,LLC.  He is a trained mediator, facilitator and arbitrator.  He has served as Chairperson of the Consumer Section of the Association for Conflict Resolution for the past 4 years.  He is a Certified Professional Mediator and Certified Mediation Trainer (Vermont Mediator Association) and serves on the ABA Dispute Resolution Section as well as the Forum Committee on the Construction Industry.  Walt works with the Vermont Superior Court, mediating commercial, contractual, construction and home-owner disputes.  He is an approved mediator/arbitrator for the VT State Department of Housing and Community Affairs.  He also serves on the Construction Dispute Resolution Services National Panel of Construction ADR Specialist and the CDRS Dispute Review Board and Arbitration Panel. 

Don Dickey currently works with the Health Care Reform Commission of the Vermont Legislature to support policy development and legislative decision making relating to Vermont’s landmark health reform initiatives. His dispute resolution work has revolved around public policy consensus building. In 2007, Don framed with multiple parties and legislative leaders a legislative agenda to implement Vermont’s multi-sector strategy in obesity prevention and helped write the legislation enacted in July 2008. Don also worked with legislative committees overseeing the start of Vermont’s all-inclusive Medicaid waiver program (2005-2007). Prior to 2005, Don managed legislative planning for the Medicaid office within the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. Previously, Don worked as a health policy program officer with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (1992-1995) and as a health policy lawyer with the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs (1986-1992). Don earned his law degree at Boston College Law School and his BA degree at Yale University. In June 2009, Don will be awarded a master’s degree in mediation and applied conflict studies from the Woodbury Institute at Champlain College (Burlington, VT), formerly Woodbury College.

Juliana Hoyt is a mediator in Vermont and an associate of the Environmental Mediation Center, a non-profit corporation that administers the USDA's Agricultural Mediation Program for the state of Vermont.  She coaches beginning and advanced mediation students and participates in trainings for attorneys and associated professionals in the techniques of collaborative law.  She helps facilitate workshops that focus on communication and team dynamics.  She is also a Massachusetts attorney who most recently worked with Boston Law Collaborative in Boston, MA.  Juliana holds a Graduate Certificate in Mediation and Applied Conflict Studies from Woodbury College in Montpelier, VT and is a candidate for a Master's degree in June, 2008.  She graduated with honors from both Wellesley College and Boston University School of Law.

Steve Linsky first entered the field of dispute resolution in 1985 when he served as a staff assistant to the Governor's Blue Ribbon Panel on Alternative Dispute Resolution.  He was appointed to the first-ever conciliation panel to the Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents (DIA) in 1986.  In 1989, he was appointed General Counsel, Special Assistant Attorney General and designated hearing officer, presiding over various administrative hearings.  In 1991, he was appointed the department's Acting Commissioner.

Steve opened a private law and mediation practice in 1997.  In 2001, he became a founding member of The New Law Center, the first collaborative law firm to form in the Boston area.  In 2005, he co-founded Family Co-Mediation, a practice providing co-mediation services to families and businesses.  He has served as a trainer and instructor in dispute resolution at various institutions including Lasell College in Newton, Massachusetts and Israel College in Tel Aviv, as an ombudsman to the housing ADR program at the Community Dispute Settlement Center, and as coordinator of the ADR program at Suffolk Superior Court. 

Steve is a member of the Massachusetts bar, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supremem Court, ADR subcommittee to the Boston Bar Association, the New England Chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution, the Massachusetts Association of Mediation Programs and Practitioners, the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation, the American Arbitration Association, and the Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council.  In 2001, he was elected to the Newton Board of Aldermen and presently chair the Board's Community Preservation Committee.

Roni Lipton is currently the Associate Director of the Graduate Programs in Dispute Resolution at UMass Boston; she also serves as a member of the Clinical Faculty, supervising and evaluating student mediators in the District Courts. 

Roni has held a variety of positions in both the private and public sectors as a manager, negotiator, mediator and facilitator.  As Senior Vice President of American CableSystems Corporation, she managed multi-million dollar business acquisitions and served as lead negotiator for more than 50 municipal contracts in six states.

Roni has been active in the New England ACR community since receiving basic mediation training at Metropolitan Mediation Services in 1993; she has been a voluntee mediator for MWI and worked as Program Coordinator at CDSC in Cambridge where she launched an Elder Care mediation initiative.  She currently participates in the Boston Bar Association's Boston Municipal Court ADR program, and frequently conducts workshops on negotiation and conflict management skills for business, professional, and community groups.

Her educational background includes a BS in Political Science from Tufts University, a Diploma in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and an MS from Boston University's College of Communications.

Joseph A. Mengacci is the principal of Conflict Solutions Services, LLC and a partner in the Center for Family Mediation and Conflict Resolution, LLC. Joe is a full time mediator & arbitrator. He previously practiced law in Connecticut for approximately 27 years before he was appointed as a Judge of the Superior Court where he served prior to entering full time ADR practice. He is a member of the Alternate Dispute Resolution Section of the Connecticut Bar Association and serves on the Executive Committee. He is a member of the Dispute Resolution Section of the American Bar Association, the Association for Conflict Resolution and the International Ombudsman Association. He is a graduate of LaSalle University and Loyola University School of Law. Joe has served as a director on a number of boards and commissions, including having been the Chairman of the Judicial Selection Commission and a trustee on the Board of Trustees of the Connecticut State University System.

A 1974 graduate of the Northeastern University Physician Assistant Program, Matt has sixteen years experience as a Physician Assistant coupled with ten years in the military health care system. As a candidate for the Master of Arts in Dispute Resolution at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Matt has refined his expertise in cross-cultural mediation issues and regularly trains staff, managers, supervisors and higher education faculty in dealing with a diverse community and student body.  

Matt's community activity and work has included such diverse organizations as Dimock Community Health Center, South Boston Neighborhood House, Fitchburg State College, Fields Corner Community Development Corporation and Dorchester People for Peace .    Certified in Facilitative Leadership®, Matt is also an Affiliate of the Interaction Institute for Social Change based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sharon Tracy, Executive Director of Quabbin Mediation, founded the organization in 1995. A mediator and trainer for fifteen years, she develops and implements mediation and conflict resolution curricula in a multitude of settings. With more than thirty years' experience in organizational development, she has particular skills in creating innovative programs and writing grant proposals to fund them. An example is Veterans Mediation, training military-connected community volunteers to mediate for their peers; another is Training Active Bystanders, an effective, locally developed school-based violence prevention program. She is a proponent of the concept that ADR practitioners’ skills can be successfully applied to community organizing by convening stakeholder alliances and facilitating their work together to meet their communities’ needs.She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Legal Studies with a concentration in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and has worked as an editor, publisher, and business development consultant.

Marianna J. Yang is a mediator and an attorney with the firm Bernstein & Yang based in Boston, MA concentrating her practice in mediation of family matters.   She trained with Mediation Works, Inc. and the Program on Negotiations at Harvard Law School.   Ms. Yang commits her free time to providing pro bono legal services presently serving as a volunteer attorney at the Volunteer Lawyers’ Project in divorce and bankruptcy matters as well as serving as a panel mediator at MWI for small claims matters throughout Boston and its surrounding communities.    She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA, in 1998 with an Economics major and an emphasis on Environmental Studies.   Ms. Yang earned her JD from the University of San Diego School of Law, in 2001.   As a litigator, Ms. Yang represented both plaintiffs and defendants concentrating on Multi-District Litigation as part of the lead plaintiff’s counsel team as well as representing national and international corporations in products liabilities and construction litigation.   She also has experience in representing railroad companies in FELA claims, grade crossing litigation, trespasser accidents and business litigation. Ms. Yang is admitted to practice in the Supreme Courts of California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts and is admitted in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania .