Trinity University

Penelope Harley is an experienced mediator and law professor. She obtained her undergraduate degree in politics, philosophy, and economics with a concentration in the field of international relations from Oxford University in 1986. While there, she wrote a thesis titled "Palestinian Education Under Occupation," for which she was awarded the Muhammed Yarbush Award for Arab Studies. After graduation, she was a Rotary Foundation Scholar in Jerusalem, where she studied Arabic at Birzeit University on the West Bank.

From 1987 to 1999, Ms. Harley worked at the education and training department of the City and Guilds of London Institute, and as pastoral head at the Grey Coat Hospital School, a large inner city high school in London, where she pioneered an academic tutorial system and developed health and social education curricula. She has traveled extensively in the Middle East, specifically to the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen.

In 1999, Ms. Harley moved to the United States in order to obtain her J.D. from Hamline University School of Law. She joined the faculty there in August 2002 as the Dispute Resolution Institute's inaugural postgraduate fellow. As a specialist in the field of dispute resolution, Ms. Harley taught courses in mediation and restorative justice at Hamline University School of Law. She later was adjunct professor at the University of Denver, where she taught courses in the Conflict Resolution Program and in the Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

From January 2005 to April 2006, Ms. Harley served as the training and dissemination expert for an EU funded project to promote international commercial arbitration and other alternative dispute resolution techniques in Middle East Development Association countries.

Ms. Harley is married to Dennis A. Ahlburg, Ph.D., president of Trinity University in San Antonio. They are parents to five-year-old Benjamin.