Lawrence (Larry) Susskind has been a member of the MIT faculty for more than 40 years. He helped to create the Environmental Policy and Planning Group in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and teaches classes on international environmental treaty-making, environmental planning, water diplomacy, negotiation and dispute resolution and participatory action research (PAR). Professor Susskind’s research interests focus on collaborative adaptive management, public engagement in environmental decision-making, “green” technology innovation, the land rights of indigenous peoples and the mediation of science-intensive policy disputes.
Thirty years ago, Professor Susskind helped to found the interuniversity Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School (where he has also served as Visiting Professor of Law on multiple occasions). PON is probably the best-known center devoted to improving the theory and practice of negotiation and dispute resolution. Professor Susskind was the first Executive Director of PON and serves as co-Director of PON’s Negotiation Pedagogy Initiative, Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program and as Vice-Chair for Instruction.
Professor Susskind helped to found the Consensus Building Institute (CBI) in 1993. CBI is a not-for-profit firm with offices in Cambridge, MA, Washington, DC, and Santiago, Chile. CBI provides mediation services in some of the most complicated resource management, city development and science-intensive policy disputes around the world. Professor Susskind has mediated more than 50 public disputes in the United States and, through CBI’s international network of dispute resolution professionals helped to mediate dozens of disputes in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.
Professor Susskind is the author or co-author of 16 books, many of which have appeared in multiple languages. He has won negotiation books awards for Dealing with An Angry Public (Free Press, 1996), the Consensus Building Handbook (Sage, 1999), and Multiparty Negotiation (Sage, 2009). He is the author of more than 100 journal articles, book chapters and professional reports. His latest book, Good for You, Great for Me: Finding the Trading Zone and Winning at Win-Win Negotiation will be released shortly by Public Affairs/Perseus.
Professor Susskind is the winner of the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) Global Environmental Award (2007), Distinguished Educator Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (2005), and Peacemaker of the Year Award from Mediators Without Borders (2010).