In early 2006, my then partner and I were anticipating our first child. I was determined to get past the unpredictable and hurtful arguments between us before the impending due date, but time again found myself falling into the same old patterns. So it was with some desparation that I accepted an invitation by a near-stranger to support a conversation between us both. All I knew of Ryan McAllister was that I felt comfortable in his presence and that he was a physicist with a PhD after his name.
The conversation was a much-needed reset. I followed Ryan out to his car afterwards, asking "what was that magic?" He handed me Marshall Rosenberg's "Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life." What I read gave me the words to express how I had long percieved the world beyond the idea of right and wrong. It helped me relate to myself and others with greater empathy and care. I devoured every NVC book and audiotape I could find and linked up with my local NVC community.
Thus began a lifetime of learning, teaching, practicing, and living NVC in every aspect of my life. Ryan and I co-founded an NVC-based intentional community where I lived for eight years. My sons and I enjoy a strong, connected relationship built on the inspiration of Inbal Kashtan and decades of NVC family camps. As a legal aid attorney, I integrated NVC to connect with my clients, negotiate more desirable outcomes with opposing counsel or parties, and offer the opportunity to be seen and heard even when the legal remedies were limited. As my career meandered from the law to peace, justice, and sustainability work, so did my NVC practice: from restorative justice, peacebuilding, mediation, and dialogue, to climate tech, deliberative democracy, and local politics.
As someone who learns by doing, and by teaching, I offered my first two-day NVC introduction around 2008. I loved it. I found flow, an ease of sinking into deep presence with the participants. I have since taught undergraduate and graduate-level NVC courses at Georgetown and American University. I have trained educators, attorneys, peacekeeping forces, youth leaders, social workers, activists, parents, and community members across the globe, from Afghanistan to Alabama to Abuja, in four different languages (and a sprinking of words and songs from dozens more). Wherever I go, I bring with me a commitment to connection and social change.
My knack for traversing diverse cultures and languages follow's from my family and personal background. I was born in East Germany to a Lebanese mother and German father, beforing immigrating to the US at a young age. I have had family in Madagascar, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and Belgium. They come from atheist, indigenous, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions. I lived and studied in South Africa. My work - in leadership development; nonviolent action and advocacy; initiating, designing, and managing complex multi-stakeholder projects; facilitating group dialogue, accountability, and reconciliation processes; and providing training, consulting, networking, and on-the-ground support to those working on the front lines of conflict and injustice - has rooted me in my adopted home, Washington, DC, with shoots far beyond. Some of my most extensive international projects have been in Burkina Faso, Chad, the Dominican Republic, Israel/Palestine, Niger, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka. Among the most unique experiences, Dr. Ruth Kansky and I applied NVC to human-wildlife conflict and community wildlife resource management in Namibian conservancies. We then published two academic articles: "Teaching nonviolent communication to increase empathy between people and toward wildlife to promote human–wildlife coexistence" in Conservation Letters and "Participatory co-learning for human–wildlife coexistence: Reflections on a novel program applying systems thinking, nonviolent communication, and learning-based approaches" in Ambio.
For organizers, I offer experience designing and leading trainings, workshops, and multi-session programs tailored to specific communities and goals. My background in law, human rights, and international affairs means I can engage institutional audiences — legal professionals, NGO staff, educators, policymakers — with credibility and nuance, while also speaking the language of grassroots organizers and community members. I am comfortable with complexity, fluent in the intersection of personal transformation and systemic change, and genuinely motivated by the question of how NVC can serve not just individual relationships but the larger arc of social and political healing.
For participants, I bring the same quality of presence to an introductory workshop as to high-stakes facilitation — grounded in my own ongoing practice, shaped by years of cross-cultural work, and committed to the kind of inner work that makes outer transformation possible. I bring warmth without bypassing difficulty, structure without rigidity, and a genuine curiosity about each person's experience and needs. I am equally at home with individuals new to NVC as with seasoned practitioners, and am skilled at adapting NVC frameworks, in synergy with other models, to serve people across widely varying cultural, professional, and political contexts.
