By Kelly Kadera
Vanessa Lefler was a brilliant scholar and public servant who cared about others. Her enthusiastic work and actions advocated for compassion and peace, typically in ways that emphasized simple steps that anyone could practice. This was true whether in the context of countries choosing what kind of mediator to use for resolving disputes or keeping a weekly commitment to meet for Sunday morning yoga, coffee, and research sessions.
I will always be especially proud of Vanessa’s dissertation, which explored how disputants choose among various avenues for conflict resolution. Importantly, she revealed how countries look ahead to the kind of outcome they’re likely to get under mediation by a third party and work that into a bilateral agreement instead, bypassing the time, costs, and potential risks of mediation. Vanessa cleverly streamlined a theoretically noisy and historically dense literature into three simple dimensions of dispute resolution: control, transparency, and bias. She got a lot of predictive power out of that compact framework. Vanessa’s commitment to conflict resolution extended to interpersonal dynamics as well. She tested some of her ideas with students in laboratory settings at Iowa and at Sun-Yat-Sen University in China. And when her peers faced the challenging frictions of academia and life, she supported them and helped them seek out third party support.
Vanessa also cared about underdogs. In an article with Brian Lai, she looked at whether the lowly non-permanent members of the UN Security Council (the 10 rotating states that you’ve never heard of) do a good job representing the regional interests of states that are not big players. It turns out that they do NOT. It seems that to get elected, they just imitate the interests of China, Russia, France, the U.K., and the U.S.!
It’s not surprising then that she also promoted another underrepresented group: female academics and scientists. Vanessa participated in our Journeys in World Politics mentoring program at Iowa and continued to send me studies of barriers to women’s productivity after she left academia. Both as a scholar and as a researcher and Director at Tennessee’s Department of Public Health, Vanessa engaged and promoted the work of female scholars working on politics and public health.
Vanessa was my student and advisee, but she was also my first, and best ever, yoga buddy. We met several times a week for yoga in Iowa City. After she finished her PhD, Vanessa was game for trying out new studios when we traveled to conferences. So, we yoga’ed together in places like Chicago , Baltimore, New Orleans, and San Francisco. Those experiences with her made me brave enough to try yoga in places where I didn’t even understand the language the class was being taught in. Vanessa’s adventurous willingness to try the unfamiliar extended to her practice. For a good stretch of time, she was committed to achieving a handstand. After one particularly spectacular tumble, she simply laughed and tried again.
A person’s yoga practice tells you a lot about their personality. In addition to being an adventurous yogi, Vanessa was a helpful and kind one. If someone came to the studio without a mat, sports top, or hair tie, Vanessa would be the first to offer a spare. She often cheerfully stepped in to boost the morale of others, even when her own self-confidence faltered. If someone apologized, Vanessa always responded with a “no worries” assurance, somehow managing to tell you that she didn’t think her homemade cookies you just dropped turned out any way.
I have many regrets. I had not seen Vanessa in several years. Despite wishing her a happy birthday just last November, I did not know she was sick. I never saw her achieve a handstand. She hadn’t yet shared with me all her accomplishments at the Department of Public Health. But my greatest regret is that despite so many conversations about it, she and I never got around to sewing together. Sewing is therapy; it stitches pieces together, makes something beautiful and precise. It makes logical sense, and so often is a great expression of love for the lucky recipient of a new dress or artwork in cloth. Although I never sewed with Vanessa, I will always remember her passion for it and how well it represents the fullness of her.
