Jacqueline Wilson, PhD

Jacki Wilson is the Team Leader for Training and Operations with the Office of Collaborative Action and Dispute Resolution.  She came to DOI in 2021 after a career as an Air Force intelligence officer and as an international conflict resolution trainer and practitioner for over a decade in more than 25 countries for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). 

In addition to undergraduate and graduate degrees, Jacki earned an inter-disciplinary Doctorate of Liberal Studies from Georgetown University in 2014.  Her dissertation topic was Blood Money in Sudan and Beyond:  Restorative Justice or Face-Saving Measure?  She has also earned a teaching credential and taught social sciences to high school students.

One of Jacki’s primary areas of work for USIP was working with tribal and traditional leaders from Darfur, Iraq, Nigeria, the Philippines, Yemen, and elsewhere using traditional mediation techniques to resolve violent conflicts and prevent escalation from retaliation and revenge.  She trained negotiators in interest-based negotiation and contributed to several international peace processes.  She also worked with cattle herding tribes that cross from Sudan into South Sudan through an indigenous intra-tribal peace committee working to prevent and manage violent conflicts, to ensure safe movement of cattle and goods across the border, and to address historical traumas such as abductions of women and children.  She notes that the same conflict management skills she taught around the world are used to resolve conflicts from the workplace to complex public engagement processes.

Jacki lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband, their daughter, two dogs and one really smart cat. They also have identical twin sons who have adulted and live independently.  She loves to garden and is slowly becoming an orchid whisperer.