Suzanne Roff was a panelist for an April 25, 2011 special program jointly sponsored by the CUNY Dispute Resolution Consortium at John Jay College and the Organization, Consulting and Work Psychology Division of the New York State Psychological Association.  She presented on the Use of Avatars for Conflict Resolution and predicted the future use of avatars to meet the needs of a growing population comfortable with virtual world technologies.

The use and limits of state-of–the-art and emerging technologies for mediation, conflict resolution and training were presented by a panel which was followed by a lively knowledge café style workshop to determine potential applications by program participants. New technologies,  including virtual world applications, were demonstrated during the presentation.  Topics covered included:

·       What’s the impact of new technologies (e.g. on-line mediation; virtual reality applications) on mediation, dispute and conflict resolution?

·       What’s the impact of the social media explosion on mediation, dispute and conflict resolution?

·       How can psychologists and mediation, dispute and conflict resolution professionals work together for the benefit of current and future clients?

·         What’s the impact of new technologies (e.g. on-line mediation; virtual reality applications) and the social media explosion on organization and consulting psychology?

Panel participants were Dr Suzanne Roff, Dr. Helen Rozelman, Jeff Thompson, and Alex Yaroslavsky.  The panel chair was Dr Richard Wexler.