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When people picture human trafficking, they often imagine scenes from movies: strangers in vans, international crime rings, dramatic rescues by law enforcement.

Cathryn Lavery, PhD, wants her students to look closer.

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A professor and department chair of the Criminal Justice and Security Department in 91��Ƶ’s Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Lavery studies officer wellness and resiliency, intimate partner violence, sex crimes and trauma, humane criminology, social media and violent crime, and human trafficking. Her work challenges students and the public to move beyond Hollywood stereotypes and confront a more complicated truth: in the United States, trafficking often happens inside homes, relationships, workplaces, schools, and online spaces.

“It’s a boyfriend doing it to a girlfriend, a husband with a wife,” Lavery explains. “It’s happening in people’s homes.”

For Christen Cooper, EdD, RDN, associate professor in 91��Ƶ’s College of Health Professions and founding director of the MS in Nutrition and Dietetics program, that hidden reality raises another urgent question: how do survivors begin to heal after exploitation, deprivation, coercion, and trauma?

For Cooper, nutrition has never been only about food. It is about dignity, trust, health, culture, autonomy, and care. As a registered dietitian nutritionist credentialed by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, she is preparing the next generation of nutrition professionals to think deeply about the people behind the practice.

Together, Cooper and Lavery represent something central to 91��Ƶ’s academic community: faculty whose research responds to real-world challenges, and whose expertise moves directly into the classroom. Through scholarship, experiential learning, and interdisciplinary collaboration, they are helping students understand human trafficking not as an abstract issue, but as a complex human rights crisis that intersects with law, psychology, public health, trauma, technology, nutrition, and survivor-centered care.

Beyond the Hollywood Myth

Human trafficking is not a single, isolated crime. It can involve sexual exploitation, labor exploitation, coercive relationships, online grooming, and hidden networks of control. It also intersects with criminal justice, economics, ethics, organized crime, public health, trauma, and victimization.

“Criminal justice is probably the most multidisciplinary major or field that exists,” Lavery says. “You cannot know criminal justice without knowing psychology or law or economics, history, philosophy, religion, and ethics.”

That multidisciplinary lens is essential, she says, because trafficking is often a thread running through other criminal markets, including drug trafficking, gun trafficking, labor exploitation, illegal mining, wildlife trafficking, and other forms of exploitation. It is profitable, adaptive, and frequently hidden behind ordinary-looking relationships or transactions.

“Academic excellence is at its most powerful when it reaches across disciplines and when it is paired with humanity.”

That is why Lavery pushes back against the idea that trafficking only involves large criminal enterprises or dramatic kidnappings. Those cases exist, but they are not the whole picture. In many situations, coercion is emotional, psychological, financial, or relational.

Victims may be groomed by romantic partners. They may be threatened with shame, deportation, violence, or retaliation against family members. They may be manipulated into believing they are making a choice when, in reality, their options have been carefully narrowed by someone else.

“It’s a phenomenal amount of emotional and psychological abuse,” Lavery says.

That psychological dimension is one reason trafficking can be so difficult for outsiders to understand. Victims may not immediately identify themselves as victims. They may defend the person exploiting them. They may fear that seeking help will bring consequences worse than the exploitation itself.

For students preparing to enter fields such as criminal justice, law enforcement, social services, victim advocacy, public health, policy, or legal work, understanding that complexity matters. A survivor’s first response may not fit the public’s expectation of what a victim “should” say or do. That does not make the exploitation less real.

At 91��Ƶ, Lavery teaches students to recognize those patterns, challenge assumptions, and ground their understanding in research rather than sensationalized narratives.

“You fight back with the knowledge, the statistics, the data,” she says.

Nutrition as Recovery and Care

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Cooper’s work approaches human trafficking from a different direction, but with the same insistence on seeing the whole person.

Her 2024 article, “Registered Dietitian Nutritionists’ Knowledge, Confidence and Experiences with Treating Human Trafficked Individuals: A Call for Interprofessional Continuing Education,” published through the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior, explores a largely overlooked intersection: how dietitians and nutrition professionals may be positioned to identify, care for, and support individuals who have experienced trafficking.

“It just occurred to me that we could play a really important role in recuperation,” Cooper says.

Human trafficking survivors may experience malnutrition, dehydration, injuries, chronic health problems, disordered eating, and a profound loss of autonomy. Food itself can be used as a means of control, punishment, or manipulation. For survivors, rebuilding a relationship with food can also become part of rebuilding a relationship with the body.

Because dietitians often conduct nutrition-focused physical exams and work closely with patients experiencing dehydration, malnutrition, wounds, disordered eating, or other health concerns, they may be in a position to notice warning signs that others miss. They may also help create a safe, caring environment where survivors feel seen as whole people.

“There’s no better time than when you are in a caring, comforting, empathetic environment to be helped,” Cooper says.

Her research found that registered dietitian nutritionists need more education and training to feel prepared to recognize and respond to human trafficking. Many want that education, including webinars and continuing education opportunities. Cooper is now building on that work by exploring how trauma-informed nutrition can be incorporated into nutrition and dietetics curricula.

She imagines models of care in which survivors are supported through nourishment, cooking, cultural foods, shared meals, and community. Food, in her view, can help restore dignity and connection. It can support physical healing through hydration, protein intake, wound recovery, and adequate nourishment. It can also support emotional healing by helping people regain choice, comfort, and trust.

“We break bread,” Cooper says. “That’s what humans do.”

Research That Reaches the Classroom

At 91��Ƶ, Cooper brings that expansive perspective into the classroom.

The MS in Nutrition and Dietetics program, which she helped found, combines classroom learning with supervised practice experiences to prepare students to become registered dietitian nutritionists. The program emphasizes scientific rigor alongside culinary nutrition, cultural understanding, and practical care. Students learn not only how nutrients affect the body, but how food traditions, access, trauma, identity, and lived experience shape a person’s relationship with nourishment.

That approach reflects Cooper’s own path. As an undergraduate at Wellesley College, she interned with a federal judge who was studying international data on violence against women and human trafficking. She later worked for the United States House of Representatives and as a management consultant in Latin America. Those experiences helped shape the way she approaches nutrition today: not as a narrow clinical field, but as a discipline deeply connected to public health, policy, justice, and human experience.

Cooper also partners with students on scholarly work, giving them opportunities to explore emerging areas in nutrition and contribute to professional conversations. She recently published an article with a student on energy deficiency in athletes, examining the nutritional consequences of inadequate fueling and strategies to prevent injury. For students considering careers in sports nutrition, public health, clinical nutrition, or community care, those research opportunities offer a powerful glimpse of what the field can become.

For Cooper, the goal is not only to publish research, but to change how future practitioners see their role.

“I was meant to reach across, partner with people, innovate, and create,” she says.

Lavery brings the same real-world focus to her criminal justice courses. She does not soften the realities of the field. Her students sometimes call her a “dream crusher,” she jokes, but the goal is not cynicism. It is preparation.

In courses that address human trafficking, Lavery brings in anti-trafficking professionals, law enforcement specialists, nurses, advocates, and others working directly with survivors. Students learn how trafficking connects to public health, digital platforms, campus safety, gender-based violence, trauma response, and criminal investigations.

“What does criminal justice have to do with nutrition? Nothing, and a lot, apparently. We find bridges to each other.”

Her current and emerging research also examines how digital spaces shape trafficking, sexual violence, and exploitation. Social media has helped bring awareness to human trafficking, but it has also created new pathways for harm. Online platforms can make recruitment easier, normalize transactional relationships, and create anonymous spaces where exploitation is harder to trace.

For college students, Lavery says, the risks are not abstract. Apps, online marketplaces, “sugar dating” sites, and social media can all become sites of grooming or coercion. Young people may believe they are in control of an arrangement, especially when it is framed as entrepreneurial or consensual. Lavery challenges students to ask deeper questions: Who is profiting? Who is vulnerable? Who is being placed in danger?

She is also clear with students about the emotional toll of this work. Criminal justice professionals, advocates, nurses, investigators, attorneys, researchers, and educators may all experience secondary trauma when working with survivors of violence and exploitation. Preparing students for that reality is part of preparing them for meaningful careers.

“If you start to ask for help and learn to deal with it, you’re going to last a lot longer,” Lavery says.

Building Bridges Across Disciplines

Cooper and Lavery recently joined faculty and practitioners for “Nutrition and Dietetics: The Roles of Law and Healthcare in Assisting Victims and Survivors,” a panel discussion hosted as part of the Annual Spring Conference of the Office of Research and Graduate Education at 91��Ƶ.

The panel brought together Cooper; Lavery; and David Mulcahy, adjunct professor of criminal justice in Dyson College and a supervisory United States probation officer for the Southern District of New York. Cooper also served as moderator.

Together, the presenters examined the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, major United States anti-trafficking initiatives, and the operational challenges law enforcement faces in preventing victims from being prosecuted and instead promoting justice, recovery, and support. The discussion also explored how healthcare providers can offer trauma-informed nutrition care to victims and survivors who have been manipulated, controlled, and deprived during captivity.

For Cooper, that kind of cross-disciplinary dialogue is essential.

“What does criminal justice have to do with nutrition?” Cooper says. “Nothing, and a lot, apparently. We find bridges to each other.”

Lavery sees that same need for broader conversation. In the fall, the Criminal Justice and Security Department plans to host a speaker series exploring trafficking and exploitation from multiple angles, with professionals working in human trafficking investigations, gun violence and trafficking task forces, and animal abuse or illegal wildlife trafficking.

For both faculty members, the goal is not simply awareness. It is deeper understanding. It is better preparation. It is helping students develop the tools to recognize harm, respond with care, and work across disciplines to support survivors.

At 91��Ƶ, that is what faculty research makes possible. It does not remain confined to journals, conferences, or professional circles. It becomes part of how students learn, how they question, how they prepare for careers, and how they come to understand their responsibilities in the world.

Lavery is preparing students to see what others miss. Cooper is helping students understand that care can begin with nourishment, dignity, and trust.

Together, their work shows that academic excellence is at its most powerful when it reaches across disciplines and when it is paired with humanity.