Research & Writing

An animating question that shapes my writing and research are the ways in which laws, technologies, and collaborative modes of governance are leveraged to address exploitation, intimacy, and vulnerability, broadly defined. My research also seeks to account for how and under what circumstances collaborations between state and non-state actors promote the security, safety, and legal recognition of some groups while authorizing the surveillance, social control, and vulnerability of others.

My first book, Control and Protect: Collaboration, Carceral Protection, and Domestic Sex Trafficking in the United States (University of California Press) explores the meaning and significance of efforts designed to combat sex trafficking in the United States, with particular focus on the effects of anti-sex trafficking interventions on individuals and communities deemed “at risk.” Control and Protect further examines how partnerships forged in the name of fighting domestic sex trafficking have blurred the boundaries between punishment and protection, victim and offender, and state and nonstate authority.

My current research project is situated at the intersections of gender, sexuality, technology, and law. I am especially interested in the role that third party actors play in mitigating tech-facilitated harm and how data in general and data-driven interventions in particular are being leveraged to respond to it.