The University of Nebraska‐Lincoln Human Trafficking Team
The University of Nebraska‐Lincoln has seven faculty members that are involved in
anti-trafficking studies, efforts, and the proposed conference. Also on the team
is one former UNL PhD student who now teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Eau
Claire, and a consultant from Washington DC.
The Team members, in alphabetical order:
Dr. Dwayne Ball is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
He has published numerous articles in academic journals, such as the Journal of
Marketing Research and the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. Working with
colleagues, through a grant from the International Organization for Migration, Dr.
Ball co-authored the first article and reports of research to empirically estimate
the extent of cross-border human trafficking, using multiple survey techniques in
Ukraine. Some of these results were published (Pennington, Ball, Hampton, and Soulakova
2009, “The Cross-National Market in Human Beings,” Journal of Macromarketing, 29,
2, 119-134). Dr. Ball’s current interests within human trafficking are in statistical,
survey, and large-sample qualitative methodologies to estimate the incidence and
nature of trafficking, as well as in identifying the vulnerable points in the marketing
systems used by traffickers.
Professor Rochelle Dalla is an associate professor in UNL’s Department of Child,
Youth and Family Studies. Her Professional Interests center around marginalized
populations-and marginalized women specifically. She is involved in a longitudinal,
qualitative investigation of street-level prostituted women. Also interested in
rural immigrant Latinas and have an active investigation following Navajo Teenage
parenting women into adulthood. Honors and awards include numerous teaching awards
including: 2007 Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in
Psychology, 2007 Swanson Award for Teaching Excellence, College of Education and
Human Sciences, 2004 Award for Young Achievers, College of Agriculture and Life
Sciences, University of Arizona, 2003 Award for Young Achievers: School of Family
and Consumer Sciences, University of Arizona, 2003 Distinguished Alumni Award: School
of Family and Consumer Sciences, University of Arizona.
Dr. Ron Hampton is associate professor of marketing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
He has published numerous articles/book chapters in various journals/manuscripts
such as the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
and the Journal of Retailing. Working with colleagues, through a grant from the
International Organization for Migration, Dr.Hampton co-authored the first article
and reports of research to empirically estimate the extent of cross-border human
trafficking, using multiple survey techniques in Ukraine. Some of these results
were recently published (Pennington, Ball, Hampton, and Soulakova 2009, “The Cross-National
Market in Human Beings,” Journal of Macromarketing, 29, 2, 119-134). Dr. Hampton
has been working in the area of Human Trafficking over the past 8 years with IOM
in Kiev on various funded projects.
Dr. Kohen is the Schlesinger Associate Professor of Social Justice and Political
Science and the Director, Forsythe Family Program on Human Rights and Humanitarian
Affairs. He teaches political philosophy at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
His research focuses principally on classical and on contemporary political thought.
His first book examined the philosophical grounding of the idea of human rights;
his current book project looks at the ways in which we think about heroic behavior
and the most choice-worthy lives
Dr. Julia Pennington is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of
Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Her practical experience bridges academia and industry. She
earned her PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and has over 20 years of
industry experience in international management, business development, and marketing
with work in over 50 countries on 6 continents. Dr. Pennington’s current areas of
interest in human trafficking are how the human trafficking system operates from
initial recruitment to final outcome and how to best to disrupt the system. She
is interested in the supply side of how victims move through the system including
recruitment, enslavement, and final outcome and in the demand side including marketing
tactics and prosecution. Along with colleagues at University of Nebraska, she recently
researched human trafficking in five Eastern European countries.
Al Riskowski is the executive director of Nebraska Family Council. Al serves on
the Nebraska Governor’s Task Force on Human Trafficking where he serves as co-chair
of the research subcommittee. He also is co-chair of the committee at the Nebraska
State Legislature in regard to Human Trafficking and is involved in crafting legislation
for the State of Nebraska to address the issue of human trafficking. He has written
numerous articles for newspapers on human trafficking and hosts a daily radio program.
Al has spoken about the issue of human trafficking at numerous conferences and before
many groups.
Professor Anna Williams Shavers is the Cline Williams Professor of Citizenship Law
in the University of Nebraska’s College of Law. She served as Interim Dean of the
Law College 2009-2010 and has also served as Associate Dean of the Law College.
Professor Shavers received her B.S. degree from Central State University in Wilberforce,
Ohio, her M.S. in Business from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and d her J.D.
degree from the University of Minnesota. She teaches Administrative Law, Immigration
Law, International Gender Issues and Refugee and Asylum Law. She is also an affiliate
faculty member of Women’s and Gender Studies and Ethnic Studies Programs at UNL.
She currently serves on the Advisory Board to the ABA Commission on Immigration
and has previously served as Chair of the AALS Section on Immigration Law, a Council
Member and Immigration Committee Chair of the ABA Administrative Law Section, and
member of the ABA Coordinating Committee on Immigration Law. Her research interests
include the intersection of gender issues and immigration.
Sriyani Tidball, on the faculty of the College of Journalism and Mass Communication
at UNL since 2008, has 27 years of experience working in an NGO. She and her husband
founded Community Concern Society in Sri Lanka that empowers mostly with marginalized
and vulnerable women and children. Her work includes running an orphanage, working
with over 2000 children, and running a school for beach dropouts. During the past
14 years she has been working actively in the area of human trafficking, and six
years ago opened a shelter for victims of abuse, homelessness and trafficking. She
has been recognized as a leader in the field of human trafficking and represented
Sri Lanka at two leading international conferences on trafficking (UN GIFT conference
in India, 2007, and UN GIFT conference in Vienna, 2008).
Dr. Brian L. Wilcox is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center on Children,
Families, and the Law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is also a faculty
member of the Center for the Psychological Study of Street Children at the Federal
University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil where he conducts research on the commercial
sexual exploitation of children. He is the author of over 70 research articles and
has served on several national advisory boards dealing with high-risk children and
adolescents. His research on legal protections for vulnerable children and adolescents
has taken him to numerous countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and he is
currently working on the evaluation of prevention programs in Ethiopia, Brazil,
and the Republic of the Philippines.
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