Birthe’s experience includes over 15 years of conflict engagement, higher education, and non-profit work in the United States and Germany. As an Ombudsperson and Director of the Office of the Ombudsperson at Georgia State University, she uses mediation, facilitation, and coaching processes to assist individuals and groups with managing interpersonal and organizational conflicts. She is a certified family and community mediator who has facilitated school-site conflict management trainings and victim offender restitution processes. Birthe has also been trained in Kingian Nonviolence by Dr. Bernard Lafayette and Dr. Bernice King.

Birthe holds a PhD in International Conflict Management from Kennesaw State University, a M.A. in African American Studies with a concentration in Psychology from UCLA, and a B.A. in Education, English, and French from the University of Hamburg, Germany. She has been contributing to the advancement of the conflict management field by developing the Comprehensive Conflict Engagement Model (CCEM) and pioneering the use of the Photovoice methodology as a practical conflict engagement strategy in diverse communities.

Birthe has published and presented in national and international journals and conferences on topics such as post-conflict social identity reconstruction and the interconnectedness of community engagement scholarship, practice, and pedagogy.