Shai Tamari
Shai Tamari is the Director of the Conflict Management Initiative, Director the minor in Conflict Management, and Professor of the Practice under the Department of Public Policy and the Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At Duke University, Shai is an Adjunct Instructor at Sanford School of Public Policy. He teaches both undergraduate- and graduate-level skills-based courses in the field of conflict management. In addition, Shai co-facilitates circles and teaches courses in prisons in North Carolina. Shai is also the Founder & President of Tamari Conflict Management, where he provides training, facilitates sessions, and coaches organizations, foundations, and other academic institutions in the field of conflict management.
Prior to his above roles, Shai was the Associate Director of the UNC Center for Middle East & Islamic Studies (2010-2023) and the foreign policy adviser for Congressman James P. Moran at the U.S. House of Representatives (2008-2010), where he focused on issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, human rights in Iran, and parental child abduction to Japan.
Born and raised in Jerusalem, Shai earned a B.A. in Journalism from the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and a Master’s degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London in the UK. In 2006, Shai was awarded a Rotary Peace Fellowship and studied for a second Master’s in Global History, along with Arabic and Conflict Resolution, at UNC. While a Rotary Peace Fellow, Shai worked in the summer of 2007 with the Cooperative Housing Foundation International in Amman, Jordan.
Shai is a native speaker of Hebrew and an amateur Elvis Presley historian. He is married, with two adult children, and a dog named Reece.
