James O'Dea is the Lead Faculty and Co-Mentor of The Shift Network's Peace Ambassador Training program, an advanced course that provides rare access to the leading peacebuilders from around the world.   He is also currently Co-Director of The Social Healing Project funded by the Kalliopeia Foundation. This work has led him to Rwanda, Israel/Palestine, N.Ireland and elsewhere. He is a member of the extended faculty of The Institute of Noetic Sciences and its immediate past President. He was Executive Director of The Seva Foundation, an international health and development organization and, for ten years, was the Washington Office Director of Amnesty International.

He is a member of the Evolutionary Leaders group founded by Deepak Chopra and Diane Williams and lectures widely on emerging worldviews, and integral approaches to social transformation. He is the keynote speaker at several conferences exploring the interface of science, consciousness, and societal healing. In 2011 he keynoted at The World Peace Festival in Berlin. He is committed to dialogue as a practice and is engaged in dialogues at SEED Graduate Institute between native elders, physicists, and thought leaders; between Israeli and Palestinian psychologists and social workers, and contributes to dialogue on systems thinking and government policy making with the DC based Global Systems Initiatives.He and Dr Judith Thompson co-led a series of international dialogues called Compassion and Social Healing.

His book Creative Stress: A Path For Evolving Souls Living Through Personal and Planetary Upheaval ( April 2010) is highly praised and featured widely in the media and studied by a host of church and home based study groups. James is also an Advisory Board Member of the Peace Alliance. He has numerous published essays. His latest essay, Creative Atonement in a Time of Peril is published by Josey-Bass in a volume entitled Beyond Forgiveness. He is currently working on a book to be published in 2012 entitled Cultivating Peace.