Jessie Brunner

Co-Principal Investigator

Jessie Brunner serves as Director of Human Trafficking Research and Associate Director, Strategy and Program Development at Stanford University’s Center for Human Rights and International Justice. In addition to co-leading the Re:Structure Lab, Jessie is currently working on several multidisciplinary, community-engaged research projects, including enhancing contract and payment structures to combat forced labor in tuna fisheries and serving as Director of Strategic Partnerships for the Stanford Human Trafficking Data Lab, guiding the Lab’s overall strategy and establishing key relationships and connections with the global anti-trafficking community. Much of this work focuses on policy engagement in Brazil and Southeast Asia, though Jessie remains active on these issues locally in San Diego and the Bay Area, as well as globally through various United Nations bodies. Her work is motivated by the desire to understand how these forms of abuse are linked to systemic inequities, and in turn, how policies can be designed to curb them while promoting fairness and justice. Jessie is further involved in projects related to trauma-informed human rights investigation and environmental justice.

She is the author of several publications related to human trafficking data collection, including Inaccurate Numbers, Inadequate Policies: Enhancing Data to Evaluate the Prevalence of Human Trafficking in ASEAN and Getting to Good Human Trafficking Data: Everyday Guidelines for Frontline Practitioners in Southeast Asia. Brunner previously served as a Public Affairs Assistant at the State Department in the Bureau on Democracy, Human Rights and Labor; a reporter for Los Angeles Times Community News; and a non-profit public relations/marketing manager.

Jessie earned a MA in International Policy from Stanford University and a BA in Mass Communications and a Spanish minor from the University of California, Berkeley.