Navigating New Work-Life Realities

Alexander Colvin, Ph.D., ’99, is the Kenneth F. Kahn ’69 Dean and the Martin F. Scheinman ’75, M.S. ’76, Professor of Conflict Resolution at Cornell University’s ILR School.

Dean Colvin’s research and teaching focuses on employment dispute resolution, with a particular emphasis on procedures in non-union workplaces and the impact of the legal environment on organizations. His current research projects include empirical investigations of employment arbitration and cross-national analysis of labor law and dispute resolution. Dean Colvin is the co-author of “An Introduction to U.S. Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations” (with T. Kochan and H. Katz) and of “Arbitration Law “( with K. Stone and R. Bales).

Dean Colvin received his J.D. in 1992 from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. in 1999 from Cornell University. He received the 2003 Outstanding Young Scholar Award from the Industrial Relations Research Association (IRRA) and the 2000 Best Dissertation Award from the IRRA for his dissertation entitled “Citizens and Citadels: Dispute Resolution and the Governance of Employment Relations.” Before joining the faculty of the ILR School, Dean Colvin taught at Penn State University from 1999 to 2008.

Carla Grant Pickens serves as the Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer for IBM, where she leads a global team dedicated to creating an inclusive culture and a workforce that reflects the world while responding to societal issues that impact IBM employees and the communities in which they live and work.

Diversity and inclusion has been a pillar of IBM’s culture for over 100 years. Under the leadership of Ms. Pickens, the company has been globally recognized as a leader in the space, named a “Top 10 Working Mother Best Company,” a “Top 10 Company for Dads,” and a “Top Place to Work for LGBTQ Employees” by the Human Rights Campaign, among others.

At IBM, Ms. Pickens has held roles in HR leadership, talent strategy and programs, and executive succession and development. She has worked and lived in Asia as well as the U.S. Ms. Pickens holds an IBM patent and the title of “IBM Inventor” for Workforce Retention and Compensation Analytics. Prior to her more than 20 years at IBM, she worked in consulting at Oracle and Northup Grumman.

Vanessa Bohns studies social influence, compliance, and consent, as well as why it’s so hard to ask for things and why it’s so hard to say no. Professor Bohns is author of the book You Have More Influence Than You Think (2021, Norton). She received her Ph.D. in social psychology from Columbia University and her A.B. in psychology from Brown University. Prior to joining Cornell in 2014, Professor Bohns taught at the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo in Canada. 

Professor Bohns’ research has been published in top academic journals in psychology, management, and law, and covered by media outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Economist, and NPR. Her popular press and practitioner writing has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review. 

Professor Bohns is currently an associate editor at Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. She previously served as an associate editor at the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and Social and Personality Psychology Compass, and she sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Social Cognition. 

Professor Bohns teaches Psychology of Work (ILRID 1520), Morality at Work (ILROB 4760), and Writing Persuasively About the Science of Persuasion (ILROB 2240), and she lectures in the EMHRM program.