Affiliations:
Associate Researcher, Susanna Wesley Foundation, University of Roehampton
Priest in Charge (from June 14, 2025), St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Tillamook
Lia Shimada is a mediator and community practitioner, currently based in Tillamook, Oregon, with extensive professional experience in the United Kingdom.
After two decades overseas, Lia recently returned to the Pacific Northwest.
In 2000, she received a fellowship from the Watson Foundation to work with reforestation movements in Nepal, Madagascar and Ireland – on both sides of the border. She fell in love with Belfast and eventually made her way back there.
As Northern Ireland moved through the 10th anniversary of the peace accords, Lia worked with the civic peacebuilding process, specializing in conflict transformation and regeneration in communities with a strong paramilitary presence.
In London, Lia implemented the national diversity strategy for the Methodist Church in Britain, and served as a community mediator in multicultural East London. She is particularly interested in the relationship between conflict, resilience and diversity in faith communities.
As a professional mediator, Lia has worked extensively with organizational, workplace, educational, community and housing disputes. From 2016 to 2022, she served on the Professional Standards Committee for the UK College of Mediators — through which she chaired the policy group for Diversity and Inclusive Practice in Mediation.
Lia holds a doctorate in Geography from University College London; a Masters degree in Theology & Religious Studies from King's College London; and a seminary degree from St Augustine’s College of Theology. She has extensive experience with coordinating participatory research projects – where the participants themselves shape the questions and the process of the research.
In her spare time, Lia enjoys hiking and baking. In memory of her infant son, Rowan, she is a strong advocate of the Death Cafe movement.