Dayle Spencer

Dayle E. Spencer is best known for having been the founding Director of the Conflict Resolution Programs at the Carter Center of Emory University. She worked with former President Jimmy Carter for almost ten years to develop his approaches to negotiating and mediating international conflicts, including civil wars. Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for these efforts.

Ms. Spencer is a lawyer/negotiator who has organized negotiations between numerous governments and revolutionary leaders in civil war situations, including Ethiopia and Eritrea, Sudan and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Front, and Liberia and the National Patriotic Front of Liberia. She is one of the few Americans to have negotiated with the government of North Korea and was instrumental in arranging for peace initiative undertaken by President Carter in that region. Her work in conflict resolution has taken her to over fifty countries on five continents where she has had hands-on involvement in myriad issues.

Prior to her pioneering work at the Carter Center, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and was also law clerk to Chief Judge John R. Brown, of the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals in Houston, Texas.

For the past twenty years she has been Managing Director of the Pangaea Group, Inc., where she has served as a consultant to many Fortune 500 companies. Additionally, she and her husband, Will, co-direct the Maui Transitions Center where they assist adults in learning how to manage life’s changes.

Dayle has been a frequent commentator on national news broadcasts, published in academic journals as well as authored a nationally syndicated news series on human rights in South Africa, and has tried approximately 100 jury trials in federal district court.

She is the author of two books on recovery from grief and loss, Loving Allie, Transforming the Journey of Loss, and Loving Spirit, Self-help for the Journey of Loss. Additionally, she is the President of Loving Spirit, Inc. a 501(c) 3, and conducts free grief and loss recovery workshops for adults. Her work in grief and loss recovery is informed by her own journey following the death of her beloved daughter, Allison Lanier Powell, at age 28, from the flu, as well as her work at the Maui Transitions Center.