Introduction
Professor Mariana H.C. Gonstead holds J.D. and LL.M. degrees from Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, she led projects in Latin America in the area of capacity building of conflict resolution, conflict transformation, and cultural awareness with community leaders and educational institutions. She has taught classes on conflict resolution at the Metropolitana University in Venezuela and the Law School of the University of Alfonso X El Sabio in Madrid, Spain.
Her first law degree was from the Catholic University Andres Bello in Caracas. In Caracas, she practiced law and clerked for Justice Calcano de Temeltas of the Supreme Court. She also worked as an associate at Davis Polk and Wardwell in New York City.
Currently, Professor Gonstead is professor of law at St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she teaches courses in the area of conflict resolution, such as ADR, mediation, community-based advocacy, and environmental problem solving. She is also the founder and executive director of the University of St. Thomas International Dispute Resolution Research Network.
Her research explores how Dispute Systems Design can create more participatory models that lead to broader inclusion in dispute and conflict management systems design. She has publications in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
As the former Co-Chair of the ABA Law School Committee of the ADR Section, she helped coordinate for the Regional and National Competitions of Representation in Mediation of the American Bar Association, as well as the ABA National ADR Educators' Colloquium. She also served as part of the Scholarly Award Committee of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution.
In addition, she has broad international experience in the field. She has trained and led national consensus building efforts in Brazil, focused on maximizing the nation's dispute resolution systems. She has also trained Venezuelans on advanced mediation and Dispute Systems Design. Working with the Trust for the Americas at the Organization of American States (OAS), she has led programs on Dispute Systems Design capacity building with the labor and non-profit sectors in El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. As an expert in investor-State disputes, she participated in the UNCTAD World Investment Forum in China.