Academic and Services Interests

I have been involved in aspects of human trafficking alleviation in Ohio for over a decade. I served on the Law and Legislative Subcommittee for Human Trafficking in Ohio and worked with Senator Teresa Fedor and others on human trafficking initiatives in Ohio and assisted with Human Trafficking Awareness Day at the Statehouse for several years, serving as co-chair in 2018 and chair in 2019. In the Fall of 2019 I left academia and devoted full-time to the study of housing for Human Trafficking Survivors in Columbus and Franklin County. The results were published in February 2020. I currently serve as the co-chair for the Ohio Attorney General's Human Trafficking Initiative subcommittee on Research and Gap Analysis. I also conducted a study on the services available in Southeast Ohio to assist human trafficking victims, the gaps in those services, and a proposed coalition to address those gaps that was funded by Appalachian Regional Commission.  As a result, I founded Eyes Up Appalachia, an anti-human trafficking initiative.