Human Trafficking Research Lab @Augustana University

One easy way to raise awareness during Human Trafficking Prevention Month is reading a proclamation at the city council meeting. I have been doing this with students since 2019 and it has been a great opportunity to meet city officials and spend a moment during the public meeting to recognize human trafficking in our community. We were able to go to the Decatur City Council meeting again this year with my student research assistant Cassidy. She got to shake hands with the mayor and get her signature on proclamation. It was pretty easy to set up via a colleague on the council and there were lots of models to look at for inspiration online if you would like to set this up in your own community! 

Human Trafficking Prevention Month is always an interesting time to learn more about the topic and this year there are several webinars which are free to attend and related to policy advocacy or data. Today, I attended a discussion on "2026 Federal Human Trafficking Policy Priorities: Let the Data Speak" sponsored by Polaris and Allies Against Slavery focused on three key federal bills: Trafficking Survivors Relief Act, Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, and the National Human Trafficking Database Act. It was interesting to learn more about the policy gaps in prosecution, services, and national coordination especially in data compilation on the federal level. We received legislative summaries for all of the bills and advocacy talking points with the key goals of the bills. I was most interested in learning about Florida's SB 7064 adopted in 2023, which created a Statewide Data Repository for Anonymous Human Trafficking Data at the University of South Flor...

Right before the holidays began I had a chance to be interviewed by WCIA news about our research on human trafficking in the lab. I spoke about our adjudication research and where we have noticed increases in labor trafficking in Central Illinois. I am always thankful to share our research and knowledge with local audiences and help raise awareness to the types of trafficking we see in our region especially as more people are traveling for the holidays. You can read and watch the short segment here !

This past semester, I have enjoyed the opportunity to work at Millikin's Human Trafficking Research Lab. During my time here, I have connected with professionals from several different fields and been introduced to an intricate web of individuals dedicated to fighting human trafficking. One of my favorite opportunities has been taking minutes for meetings of the Illinois Human Trafficking Task Force and witnessing their activism in action.  Currently, we are working on a research project that seeks to link media portrayals of trafficking victims to successful human trafficking legislation, or lack thereof. I have extensively researched and written up narratives on the human trafficking-related laws in Missouri and Illinois as the groundwork of the project. Next, we will compile newspapers from each of these states and compare the language used to portray victims of human trafficking with the state’s legislation. Then, we will determine whether or not the media has influenced the pa...

  The details are coming together for our ninth annual panel discussion at Millikin University for Human Trafficking Prevention Month on January 28 at 6:00 pm. Our theme this year is "Labor Trafficking" and it will feature local experts working on this issue in Central Illinois. I am still working on a few panelists but this panel discussion will round out events held around the United States for Human Trafficking Prevention Month 2026. Stay tuned for our announcement of the panelists!

On Friday I was really honored to be featured on a professional development panel "Academic Entrepreneurship: Launching and Leading Centers, Labs, and Institutes" for Women in Legislative Studies. I as asked to speak about the Human Trafficking Research Lab and my experience starting a lab at a small liberal arts college. My lab was featured with the Director of the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy at Dartmouth College and the Director of the Hispanic Research Center at Arizona State University. It was great to share the space with these labs even though my experience of building a lab from scratch was very different from these established labs at major research institutions.  Still, I was happy to share my experience, the HTRL manual , and the things I wish I would have known before building a lab. I wish I would have had more training on being a boss and accountability measures which I have learned but sometimes it has been challenging. I also wished I have taken a clas...

Today I participated in the 24-hour Conference on Global Organized Crime, an entirely online conference with 300 experts and over 20 sessions attended by people around the world. I presented the research from our National Science Foundation project on a "Transnational dimensions of human trafficking in the wake of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine." This panel explored how armed conflict, forced displacement, weakened governance, and new technologies have fueled trafficking, with a particular focus on children and internally displaced persons (IDPs). Drawing on research and frontline practice, the session examined evolving typologies of conflict-related trafficking, including forced labor, sexual exploitation, and recruitment into combat roles, as well as domestic labor exploitation of vulnerable groups. By weaving together legal, psychological, and political science perspectives, the discussion situated Ukraine’s experience within wider debates on organized crime in conflic...