Faculty and Staff

Professor of Conflict Management

vfranke@kennesaw.edu
(470) 578-2931
House 3201 - 204

Dr. Volker Franke is Professor of Conflict Management and Executive Director of TRENDS Global, an Atlanta-area based nonprofit dedicated to research and engagement in diverse societies. Dr. Franke has worked with the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute at the U.S Army War College, the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), one of Germany's premier peace and conflict research and capacity building institutes, and the National Security Studies Program at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is the author of Preparing for Peace: Military Identity, Value-Orientations, and Professional Military Education (Praeger 1999) and more than 40 journal articles, book chapters, case studies and research reports on issues related to peace and security studies, conflict management, civil-military relations, development policy and social identity. 

Assistant Professor of Conflict Management

ugoswami@kennesaw.edu
(470) 578-5104
House 3201 - 202

Uddipana Goswami is a writer and feminist peace researcher with a PhD in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. Her academic works include Gendering Peace in Violent Peripheries: Marginality, Masculinity, and Feminist Agency (Routledge 2023) and Conflict and Reconciliation: The Politics of Ethnicity in Assam (Routledge 2014). Uddipana is also author of a collection of short stories set against the violent conflicts of Northeast India, No Ghosts in This City (Zubaan, 2014) and two poetry collections that dwell on the intersections of personal and political violence. Her Fulbright postdoctoral research (2016-2018) at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, was on gender and ethnonationalist conflicts. As an interdisciplinary academic, she has published widely in the fields of conflict, peace, ethnicity, social identity, media, gender, South Asia, Northeast India, and writing & literary studies. 

A former journalist and editor, Uddipana worked for over a decade with several multinational and hyperlocal media groups, from National Geographic Channel to Seven Sisters Post. She brought a scholar-practitioner's approach to her classrooms at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (India), Guwahati College (India), University of Pennsylvania (USA), Curtis Institute of Music (USA), and the Johns Hopkins University (USA).

Assistant Vice Provost and Professor of Conflict Management

shayes32@kennesaw.edu
(470) 578-6499
KH 4415

Professor of Conflict Management

tkhedeen@kennesaw.edu
(470) 578-6127
House 3201 - 111

Dr. Timothy Hedeen has served as researcher, evaluator, mediator, ombuds, facilitator or trainer for court systems, educational institutions, federal agencies, and many private, civil, or non-governmental organizations. His experience spans mediation and restorative justice in community and educational settings, policymaking and regulation of court dispute resolution services, consultation, and assessment services to international organizations.

Professor of Sociology

dlepadat@kennesaw.edu
(470) 578-6953
House 3201 - 110A

Dr. Darina Lepadatu is Associate Director of Professional Programs & Director of MS in Conflict Management, School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding & Development. Dr. Lepadatu teaches the following graduate courses: Qualitative Methods, Advanced Qualitative Methods, Dissertation Proposal Colloquium, Research Design, Current Conflicts and Conflict Management for Managers. 

Areas of expertise: Intercultural and Organizational Conflict, Transnational Migration & Refugees, Conflict Management.

Regional area of expertise: Central and Eastern Europe; European Union; Post-communist Societies

Youtube

Academic Program Support Specialist

smufti@kennesaw.edu
(470) 578-2452
HSE 59 (3201) 116

2025 KSU- Student Success Impact Award

2025 Norman J. Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences- Outstanding Team Member Award Exceptional Performance

Associate Professor of Conflict Management

hpincock@kennesaw.edu
(470) 578-6227
House 3201 - 111

Dr. Heather Pincock, Associate Professor of Conflict Management. Her research is broadly concerned with theories of democracy and citizenship, and her work examines how both citizens and the state seek to manage everyday conflicts in ways that conform to, reinforce, and challenge democratic values of autonomy, equality, and community.

Keywords: Political Science, Democratic Theory, Public Deliberation, Participatory Democracy, Citizenship