Keynotes, Presenters, & Panelists

Autumn Burris is a dedicated and passionate leading expert and international speaker with over twenty years experience in combating sexual exploitation. As the Founding Director of Survivors for Solutions and a survivor of multiple forms of both commercial sexual exploitation and violence against women, Ms. Burris utilizes her lived experiences and expertise as an influential and invaluable force in effectuating public policy reform, delivering training and presentations, and fostering positive change and social and political recognition to exploited individuals.Autumn holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science/Public Policy with minor Human Rights from the University of California, San Diego. As a subject matter expert, Autumn’s public policy advocacy experience includes the United Nations, British Parliament, legislative work at the federal level, testifying on state legislation and expert testimony in federal trafficking cases.

Ms. Burris’ experience includes educating offenders-Sex Buyers and Traffickers. She is currently an Expert Consultant with the Office for Victims of Crime Training and Technical Assistance Center, a Peer Reviewer with the Office of Justice Programs and a member of SPACE International.

Hanni Stoklosa, MD, MPH, is the Executive Director of HEAL Trafficking, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital with appointments at Harvard Medical School, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. She is Director of the Global Women’s Health Fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Connors Center. Dr. Stoklosa is an internationally-recognized expert, advocate, researcher, and speaker on the wellbeing of trafficking survivors in the U.S. and internationally through a public health lens. She has advised the United Nations, International Organization for Migration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of State, and the National Academy of Medicine on issues of human trafficking and testified as an expert witness multiple times before the U.S. Congress. Moreover, she has conducted research on trafficking and persons facing the most significant social, economic, and health challenges in a diversity of settings including Australia, China, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Liberia, Nepal, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, South Sudan, Taiwan, and Thailand. Among other accolades, Dr. Stoklosa has most recently been honored with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Women’s Health Emerging Leader award and the Harvard Medical School Dean’s Faculty Community Service award for her tireless efforts to advance the public health response to trafficking. Her anti-trafficking work has been featured by the New York Times, National Public Radio, Glamour, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, STAT News, and Marketplace. Dr. Stoklosa published the first textbook addressing the public health response to trafficking, “Human Trafficking Is a Public Health Issue, A Paradigm Expansion in the United States.”

Arun Kumar Acharya, PhD, is a Professor and Researcher at Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Monterrey, Mexico, where he is currently focusing on the perspectives and implications of internal and international migration with regard to human trafficking. He is also a member of National Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT) level III. Dr. Acharya has published eight books and several journal articles on human trafficking. He is part of the editorial board of the Journal of Human Trafficking (JHT). He also actively participated during the formulation of Mexican anti-trafficking law in 2012 and 2014. His scholarly work includes:

• Acharya, A.K (2017), Post Trafficking Victims in Mexico and Their Reintegration Process: An Analysis on the Government’s Response. In: Emilio C. Viano (Eds), Cybercrime, Organized Crime, and Societal Responses, Springer.
• Acharya, A.K (2016), Trafficking of women for sexual exploitation in Mexico and their identity crisis, International Review of Sociology, Vol 26 (2), DOI:10.1080/03906701.2016.1155357.
• Acharya, A.K., Suarez, A.M., Ontiveros, F.J.G. (2016). Trafficking of women and children in Mexico: An assessment of anti-trafficking laws. Journal Review of Research and Social Intervention, No. 53, 5-21.

William Adams, MPP, is a Principal Research Associate at the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where he conducts applied social science research and evaluates criminal justice programs and policies. His research has focused primarily on the criminal justice system’s response to human trafficking. Adams is currently the Principal Investigator of a NIJ-funded project to evaluate the U.S. Department of Justice’s Enhanced Collaborative Model (ECM) Human Trafficking Task Forces. He was the Co-Principal Investigator of two human trafficking research projects on which the Urban Institute was subcontractor to Northeastern University: a BJS-funded project to design and maintain the Human Trafficking Reporting System (HTRS), and a NIJ-funded study examining challenges to investigating and prosecuting human trafficking at the state and local level in the United States. Adams also led a project that conducted evaluability assessments of international anti-human trafficking programs funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Combat and Monitor Trafficking in Persons. He has published several reports with government agencies that pertain to human trafficking.

Danna Basson, PhD, MPP, is WestCoast Children’s Clinic’s Director of Research and Evaluation. Since joining WestCoast in 2012, she has conducted research to further understand the needs and strengths of sexually exploited children, youth with foster care and juvenile justice involvement, and young people with serious mental illness. She is the lead author on a community-based research study, Research to Action: Sexually Exploited Minors (SEM) Needs and Strengths, which is a clinical profile of sexually exploited youth. She is also the Principal Investigator of the project to develop and validate WestCoast’s Commercial Sexual Exploitation-Identification Tool (CSE-IT). She led the focus groups and interviews with stakeholders across the state to develop the tool. She analyzed screening data for 5,500 youth to validate the tool. Dr. Basson has presented internationally on her work pertaining to sexually exploitation youth and the needs of vulnerable youth.

Christina Crenshaw, PhD, is a professor, researcher, writer, and human trafficking fighter. She teaches writing and vocational leadership courses as a full time Lecturer at Baylor University. She also researches human trafficking prevention education, a subject on which she frequently speaks. She has worked with several anti human trafficking organizations such as The A21 Campaign, UnBound Now, the Heart of Texas Human Trafficking Coalition, and Operation Mobilization’s Freedom Climb. Dr. Crenshaw also served on Propel Women’s Brain Trust during its 2016-2016 launch year. Prior to moving to Waco, TX, she lived in Southern California and held an Assistant Professor position at California Baptist University. Dr. Crenshaw earned a PhD in Education with an emphasis in English literature from Baylor University.

• Scott, L., Crenshaw, C. (2018). Not in my city!: Central Texas teachers equip students with human trafficking prevention and awareness curriculum. Under review.
• Scott, L., Crenshaw, C (2017). : Examining A21 curriculum’s impact on students’ knowledge, attitudes, and advocacy about anti-Human trafficking rights and issues. Journal of human trafficking, 1-18.
• Crenshaw, C. & et. al. (2014). Bodies are not commodities Texas Version: Anti-human trafficking curriculum. The A21 Campaign.

Ieke De Vries is a doctoral student at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. De Vries started conducting research on the issue of human trafficking as a researcher for the National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings in The Netherlands. At Northeastern, Ieke continues doing research on both sex and labor trafficking utilizing innovative approaches and robust methodologies. For example, she recently published a study examining labor trafficking victimizations as forms of repeat victimizations and polyvictimizations. Her other research areas focus on the use of online data to understand crime, criminal networks and the nesting of crime in legitimate surroundings. Currently, Ieke De Vries looks at the issue of sex work and sex trafficking in massage businesses based on a combination of online and administrative data. Ieke’s research agenda has received recognition through several research awards and fellowships.

Sarah Godoy is a research associate at UCLA’s Semel Institute and lecturer in the Department of Social Welfare at UCLA. Sarah served as a policy associate for the National Center for the Youth Law’s Child Trafficking Team. At UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation, Sarah was the lead researcher and author of “Shedding Light on Sex Trafficking: Research, Data, and Technologies with the Greatest Impact.” She has published five articles in Forbes, highlighting the intersection of sex trafficking and technology. Sarah’s a reviewer for the Journal of Human Trafficking and a board member to the organization Women Wonder Writers. Sarah worked directly with the women and children living in the brothels of Old Delhi, India’s red-light district and conducted research in Tijuana, Mexico’s red-light district. She co-facilitated a psychoeducation support group for commercially sexually exploited youth at the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Saving Innocence. In 2017, Sarah was named number 20 of the top 100 Human Trafficking and Slavery Influence Leaders. Sarah holds her Master’s degree in Social Welfare from the University of California, Los Angeles.

David V. Habif, Jr. is a pediatric specialist and neuroscientist dedicated to healthcare system and social policy design. He uses System Dynamics with government and organizational leaders to optimize system structure, programming, and behavior. His most recent work has been with the County of San Diego, as it restructures addressing sex trafficking of children, and with a University Pediatric Hospital, to streamline efficiency of information flows to improve outcomes for children with traumatic brain injury. David founded Teaneck Radiology Center in 1983, the first stand-alone Pediatric Imaging Center in the U.S. dedicated to using advanced technology for diagnosis and ongoing treatment for children and families. For years he participated in the State Child Welfare System, Court system, and Healthcare Administration Board. David attended Princeton University (A.B.), Columbia University (M.D.), and recently completed his MPH/MSW with Washington University’s Brown School.

Ebony Jones is an example of resilience, strength & leadership. Her experience in sex trafficking & prostitution gave her a heart of mercy for all people involved. She currently works for an organization that provides services to victims of sexual exploitation &/or prostitution. Ebony is a certified facilitator for curriculums such as “My Life My Choice”, “Ending the Game” & “Word on the Streets”. Formally a contractor with the Child Welfare Services, Ebony served as a CSEC Trainer & Consultant for stakeholders throughout San Diego County. Ebony also served on the CSEC San Diego Steering committee in 2016-2017, is currently a Victim Advocate for the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, & is currently a member of Kroc’s Women for Social Impact, volunteer for the Survivor Leader Network San Diego, & Bayview Church. She intends to open a drop-in center for youth to receive resources regarding mental health, substance use, financial stability, employment help, & basic needs. Ebony lives by transparency & believes in helping others. “Don’t hide from your truth; everyone is a survivor of something. You can use your story to help many. One broken person is one too many”.

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Brandi Liles, PhD, graduated from the University of Tulsa (TU) in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 2013. She completed her Predoctoral Psychology Internship at the CAARE Center in 2012 with a specialization in child maltreatment. She now serves as the Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) Coordinator and is a Nationally recognized Master Trainer for TF-CBT. For the past 5 years, Dr. Liles’ trauma specialization has expanded to serving victims of commercial child sexual exploitation including training professionals in probation, child welfare, and mental health on providing trauma-informed services to youth who have been sexually exploited. Current interests include: trauma-focused treatment, dissemination of empirically supported treatments, trauma-informed child welfare and probation systems, children/youth who have experienced sexual exploitation, and identifying secondary traumatic stress/vicarious trauma in professionals.Dr. Liles will be presenting on her work in a multidisciplinary juvenile court in Sacramento, California for sexually exploited and at-risk youth. Key components, innovations, multi-disciplinary collaboration and challenges and future directions of the specialized court will be discussed.

Anthony Marcus, PhD, received his PhD in Anthropology from the City University of New York and has done research on poverty, livelihoods development, gender, kinship, social capital, and ethnic conflict in the Republic of Maldives, Cuba, Guatemala, Nepal, the United States, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, where he researches human trafficking, teenage prostitution, prisoner reentry, the victimization of undocumented Latino migrants, and family conflict over “honor” and marriage among the children of migrants from North Africa, South Asia and the Middle East. He also provides expert witness testimony in federal sex trafficking trials.

David Medina is a Strategic Research Analyst at Polaris, a leader in the global fight to eradicate human trafficking. David’s research is focused on Labor Trafficking in the industry of Agriculture. More specifically, he is investigating violations in the labor recruitment supply chain of the H-2A visa guest worker program and the exploitation and trafficking of undocumented migrants in agriculture across the US. Prior to joining Polaris, David served as a Global Security Analyst at the World Bank Group; a Security and Organizational Consultant for Espacios de Mujer (‘Spaces for Women’), a Medellin, Colombia-based NGO that assists and reintegrates victims of human trafficking; and a Researcher at Mahidol University’s Institute for Population and Social Research in Bangkok, Thailand, where he investigated the nexus between human trafficking and access to education in the ASEAN economic region. David is an M.A. graduate in International Affairs from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and a B.A.in Political Science from College of the Holy Cross. David has a background in teaching, coaching, and diversity workshop facilitation. He is bilingual and an avid travel and sports enthusiast.

Laura T. Murphy, PhD, is Associate Professor of English and the Director of the Modern Slavery Research Project at Loyola University New Orleans. Through her work, she has interviewed 600 homeless youth in the United States and Canada and has authored two major studies that provide a 4-pronged blueprint for community-based actions that will reduce the risk of trafficking in this population. Her book, Survivors of Slavery: Modern-Day Slave Narratives, explores human trafficking through the first-person testimony of nearly forty people who have been enslaved in the last twenty years. Her first book, Metaphor and the Slave Trade in West African Literature (winner of the African Literature Association First Book Prize), examines the coded ways West African writers have memorialized the trauma of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. She is currently completing a new book titled The New Slave Narrative, which investigates the way people talk about the experience of slavery in the 21st century and analyzes the political mobilization of the term “slavery” and the cooptation of the voices of survivors in today’s anti-slavery movement.

Rebecca Pfeffer, PhD, is an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Houston – Downtown. Her research focuses generally on the victimization of vulnerable populations, including victims with special needs and victims of human trafficking and hate crimes. Her current research focuses on public policies addressing prostitution, both in terms of the buying and selling of sex, and specifically investigates effective law enforcement response to the problem of prostitution.

Teresita Rocha Jiménez, M.A, is a PhD candidate in the UCSD-SDSU Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health, Global Health Track. She received her MA in Latin American Studies from the University of California, San Diego and BA in International Relations from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). For both her masters and her Ph.D. she has been awarded a full scholarship from the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, CONACYT, UC-Mexus. As a doctoral student, Teresita completed her international practicum in the Mexico-Guatemala border conducting in-depth interviews with female migrants sex workers and with health providers. She has also conducted extensive fieldwork in Tijuana, Mexico mainly with women sex workers and with sex workers male clients. Her main interests are migration, mobility, sex work, sex trafficking, and border issues as well as how policies surrounding these issues have unintended consequences for migrant sex workers’ health, including risk for acquiring HIV.

Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, MSW, PhD, is an associate professor in the ASU School of Social Work and the Director of the Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research (STIR). STIR has more than a dozen ongoing research projects on sex and labor trafficking. Her publications include research reports and peer-reviewed articles exploring the issues of human trafficking, including sex trafficking and exploitation of victims, traffickers, and sex buyers. She has also been involved in developing innovation related to homelessness and exploitation, including: developing and implementing the Youth Experiences Survey for homeless and runaway young adults for the past four years; creating and implementing a pop up drop in center for prostituted and sex trafficked persons in Phoenix serving 234 individuals with 22 community partners; and partnering with law enforcement entities, including the Phoenix Police Vice Enforcement Unit and the Las Vegas Vice Unit. She has also been involved in developing the first section 8 HUD housing for homeless sex trafficked women and their children with the City of Phoenix, which opened in November 2017.