Kirsten Foot, PhD

Affiliation: University of Washington

Dr. Kirsten Foot is the Dart Endowed Professor in Trauma, Journalism, and Communication at the University of Washington. She leverages her expertise in inter-organizational relations to conduct action research on what it takes to build and sustain partnerships to counter human trafficking. Her 2016 book on this topic, Collaborating Against Human Trafficking: Cross-Sector Challenges and Practices, has been acclaimed by a diverse array of anti-trafficking leaders and has received several awards and honors. One of her open-access articles, (co-authored with retired police lieutenant John Vanek), provides recommendations for law enforcement officers on working with advocacy groups that focus on human trafficking. She currently studies hope-based journalism on trafficking, and counter-trafficking coalitions in Global South countries. Dr. Foot also curates an open-access collection of collaboration resources and advises counter-trafficking coalitions, and has provided webinar/workshop trainings on collaboration for OVC-TTAC, the National Survivor Network, and international delegations of counter-trafficking experts. As a collaboration evaluator she has worked with the Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force and the WashACT task force for Western Washington under their BJA/OVC ECM grants. She is an advisor to Ten Thousand Windows, and on the editorial board of the international Journal of Human Trafficking.

Research Interests:

• Hope-based journalism to counter human trafficking

• Multisector collaboration

• Inter-organizational partnership in anti-trafficking efforts