This month's mensch is the shaved-headed, benignly smiling figure you see above.  The one on the right.  In the suit.  Detective Jeff Thompson, NYPD.

Jeff became a mediator with us about five years ago, and his boundless energy, intellectual curiosity, and passion for peace have made him a deservedly recognized figure in our field.

More about Jeff:

-- He represents what the police should be all about: community peacebuilding. Jeff works tirelessly to integrate mediation skills into the NYPD.  And he's been modeling this on-site at the Occupy Wall Street protests, striving to make the police and protesters collaborators in peace.  We need more cops like this.

-- Jeff's a one-man convoy on the information superhighway.  He drops knowledge through his blogs Enjoy Mediation and Nonverbal PhD, and he's a featured blogista onMediate.com and the International Mediation Institute.  He's the brains behind the Werner Institute's ADR Hub, a growing social networking site for peace professionals. In between it all, he tweets with the energy and frequency of an Arab Spring dissident.

-- He is committed to raising awareness of diverse religious traditions in New York City,and works closely with the Interfaith Center.  He's been on junkets with them to Madrid and Glasgow, spieling about how religious diversity can contribute to community cohesion.

-- Jeff's pursuing a Ph.D. on nonverbal communication at Griffith University Law School in Australia, and has been conducting splendid info-taining workshops on the practical applications of his research. Not sure if we'll call him "Doctor Detective Jeff" or "Detective Doctor Jeff."

-- He hangs around bus stations and airports just to analyze people's body language. Not in a creepy way.

-- Newsweek followed him around and profiled him mediating for our consumer debtprogram in Manhattan Civil Court.

-- It is impossible to not feel that Jeff scrutinizes your every gesture, movement, and tic.  This takes some getting used to, though he's quick to put you at ease and tell you he's not analyzing you. (But he really is.)

from http://thehecklist.wordpress.com