Dr. Byron is a mediator, an educator, and an active community organizer in the fields of conflict resolution, violence prevention, and multicultural community development. Dr. Byron has more than 25 years of experience working with diverse communities to heal trauma and transform conflict. She is particularly interested in the field of violence, understanding how and why it occurs, and forging new ideas on individual and collective responses.

Dr. Byron earned her BA in Business Administration at Lewis and Clark College, her MA in Intercultural Management at the School for International Training, and completed her Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at Portland State University. Her dissertation is entitled, Storytelling as Loving Praxis in Critical Peace Education: A Grounded Theory Study of Postsecondary Social Justice Educators.

Current research interests, within critical peace education and violence prevention, include exploration of loving praxis as a pedagogy of change, storytelling as a means to engage students in democracy, creativity as a conflict resolution practice, and the exploration of how identity and culture influence conflict.