Douglas H. Yarn was a student at the University of Georgia in 1983 when his mentor, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, got Yarn involved in conflict resolution, mostly from an international perspective.

Yarn graduated from UGA in 1984 and went on to be a litigator, an in-house lawyer at an investment banking firm and then an in-house mediator and lawyer with the American Arbitration Association.

In 1994, he joined the faculty at Georgia State University law school, where he now teaches conflict resolution. He also serves as executive director of the Inter-University Consortium on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, a leading multidisciplinary theory-building center.