Carissa Phelps

Carissa Phelps, JD, MBA, is a California attorney and leader in the anti-human trafficking movement for nearly two decades. She holds a Juris Doctorate from UCLA School of Law and an MBA from Anderson School of Management, where she was named one of the Top 100 Inspirational Alumni (2010). She earned a BA in mathematics, summa cum laude, from California State University, Fresno. In 2012, Phelps founded Runaway Girl, FPC, a flexible purpose corporation that organizes survivors of human trafficking around resources, networks, and community-based advocacy while improving protocols and responses to child sex trafficking. She is the author of the memoir “Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand at a Time” (Viking, 2012) and the subject of the award-winning documentary “CARISSA” (2008, Davis Guggenheim as Executive Producer). As a survivor of sex trafficking, Phelps leverages her lived experience with her legal and policy expertise to advance systemic change and educate practitioners, policymakers, and first responders about the complex impacts of trafficking on survivors’ lives and futures.