My work is in the study of rhetorical, psychological and communicative processes in personal relationships. After a PhD in Social Psychology, I moved to Communication Studies and finally Rhetoric. After founding the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, I edited it for 15 years and was also President of the International Network on Personal Relationships and cofounder of the Interpersonal Conferences on Personal Relationships, both of them international and interdisciplinary in emphasis.

My research area is music education and well-being with a focus on music in prisons (from an abolitionist perspective), songwriting, and collaborative communities. I am creating connections among many researchers across the U.S. through the Justice Arts Coalition and recent Arts in Prison conferences and across the globe interested in music education in prisons, currently in Germany, Scotland, England, Brazil, Belgium, Norway, Australia, and hoping to continue to build this network. I am also very interested in peacebuilding and music education, and restorative & transformative justice.

In order to support the needs of gifted and talented learners, I work primarily with educators who want to better understand best practices in gifted education. I teach or supervise courses that explore the identification of gifted learners and the curriculum and programming that meets their needs. All coursework aligns with one or more sets of national standards in the field as provided by the National Association of Gifted Children, although work with international educators has to be responsive to their settings. My research interests include attitudes of teachers toward talented children, and how those attitudes can expand to include essential practices such as the acceleration of high-ability learners.

I am a poet, nonfiction writer, translator, and editor, and much of my work concerns my travels abroad. I have written books on the 1990 World Cup in Italy, the wars of succession in the former Yugoslavia, and the spiritual home of Eastern Orthodox monasticism. As director of the International Writing Program, I have undertaken cultural diplomacy missions to more than fifty countries. And every fall I have the good luck to host thirty-some distinguished poets and writers from around the world.

My primary teaching and research areas are Family Law and International Family Law, with a particular interest in cross-border children's law and children's rights. I chair the board of the US branch of International Social Service (ISS-USA) and have attended treaty negotiation and review meetings in The Hague and elsewhere on the Hague Children's Conventions.