Meet Christine.

Hi! I’m Christine. I'm a former educator turned dialogue practitioner and leadership development consultant, with 15+ years in facilitation, teaching, and leadership development. Seven of these years included living, teaching, and leading overseas in multicultural communities. I'm also a wife, dog mom, doctoral student, and lifelong learner. When I'm not working or researching, you'll find me running trails, lifting, skiing, or climbing in the mountains of Montana.

I believe deeply in dialogue. This is the kind of authentic conversation that helps people build trust, navigate complexity, and move toward shared meaning and innovative action. I don’t believe we can solve today’s problems without it.

I landed on this belief because my travels overseas led to a shift in my perspectives and left me with a lingering question:

Why are we so polarized, and what can we do about it?

I started searching for answers upon starting my PhD in Leadership Studies, digging into what polarization actually is, where it comes from, how it relates to conflict, and what it means for our organizations, communities, and democracy. 

The research keeps pointing to the same answer. Rather than turning away from each other in isolation, we’ve got to turn toward each other to reach for shared understandings (even when understanding is not the same as agreement).

That may sound "Pollyanna-ish” because it's unusual in today's society. We've normalized our inability to think together to the point that it barely registers as a problem. Yet we can't face today's complex challenges without learning to think differently. We’ve got to re-engage in public life at work, at home, and in our communities, and that requires dialogue.

By dialogue, I don't mean discussion or debate. I mean maintaining respect, listening without judgment, exploring underlying assumptions, surfacing new questions, and building deeper understanding together. Done well, dialogue opens up possibilities that debate never will. It creates innovation and collective momentum forward.

This shift in my research has become a shift in my work. Today, I offer internal and group-to-group dialogue facilitation and leadership development training for international organizations and communities. I work with any team or organization struggling with “us” versus “them” dynamics.

My background shapes how I show up as a facilitator. As a curriculum designer, I've built programs for adult leadership academies, university systems, local governments, and K–12 schools. As a scholar, I connect theory and practice, grounding each session in evidence. As a certified educator, I design trainings that invite deep reflection and real-world application. As a former expatriate and adult language learner, I’ve gained the ability to honor dualities while meeting differences with flexibility and acceptance.

Together, these experiences let me act as a bridge in the room, moving between perspectives and helping people see the situation through each other's eyes.

It is my hope that dialogue becomes the norm, not the exception.