KU News Release

Psychiatrist who studies ethnic and religious conflicts to speak at KU

LAWRENCE — John Woodall, a psychiatrist who specializes in the psychological impact of ethnic and religious conflict and the problems of restoring community, is the 2006-07 Peace & Conflict Studies Lecturer at the University of Kansas.

Woodall will speak on “Challenges to Ethical Social Development After War Trauma” at 4 p.m. Friday, Nov. 10, in 330 Strong Hall.

Woodall is a research fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard University. He has worked with victims of violent conflict in the Balkans, Israel and Cyprus, and has been a consultant to government agencies and other groups on conflict resolution and community restoration.

Woodall was the founder and director of the Task Force on Accountability for War Crimes in the Balkans in 1993-94. He assisted the International Criminal Tribunal in former Yugoslavia in developing psychologically sensitive methods of collecting evidence from victims of war crimes. He was later project director for a USAID-funded program to provide psychosocial programming and training for victims of war trauma in Croatia and Bosnia, and a consultant to the U.S. government on issues related to the Palestinian-Israeli and the Greek-Turkish Cypriot conflicts.

Woodall also provided counseling to United Airlines staff at Boston’s Logan International Airport in the three weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He has spoken to many community groups and professional workshops on the moral and social issues involved in violent conflict and reconciliation.

The Woodall lecture is sponsored by KU’s Humanities and Western Civilization Program, with co-sponsorship by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Hall Center for the Humanities, the Department of Psychology and the Center for European Studies.

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