DR. SUSAN RAINES

BIO

Dr. Raines is a collaboration specialist and the Associate Director of the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding & Development at KSU. She helped build and currently leads the #1 ranked public university-based graduate degree program in Conflict Management.

She works to enhance team cohesion, create positive organizational cultures, increase engagement, reduce attrition, reduce litigation, improve organizational justice, empower DEI practices by managers, protect brand image, and enhance mission achievement and managerial skills. Dr. Raines proactively facilitates conversations to reach shared expectations within teams to reduce unproductive conflict between leadership team members, vendors, business partners, and customers. Alternatively, she is called upon to mediate and facilitate between two or more individuals or divisions actively experiencing conflict (or corporate scandals) that negatively impacts mission achievement and the ability of people to enjoy their workplace and team. Dr. Raines believes life is too short and our missions are too important to leave problems at work unaddressed. Dr. Raines empowers clients with the skills, systems, and optimism necessary to solve vexing challenges in their work lives. Her passion is working across differences of all types to bring people together around a shared mission.

Dr. Raines has mediated more than 17,000 cases inside and outside the court system, including hundreds of employment and workplace disputes cases. She has worked with the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Volkswagen North America (VW), Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushiki gaish (YKK), United States Postal Service (USPS), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Coca-Cola, Florida Supreme Court, Medical Association of Georgia (MAG), American Academy of Family Physicians, Georgia Courts, American Chemistry Society, Italian Chamber of Commerce, United Nations-International Organization for Migration (UNIOM), and more. She is the author of Conflict Management for Managers (2013; 2019), the co-author of Expert Mediators (2013), and more than 55 peer-reviewed publications. She was the Editor-in-Chief of Conflict Resolution Quarterly from 2008 to 2020.

Dr. Raines holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from KSU, a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Indiana University Bloomington, a Master's degree in Political Science-International Relations, and a BA in Political Science and Government from California State University-Sacramento.