Ali Boak (she/her/hers) is a visionary public health leader with award-winning expertise in creating strategic responses to complex problems at the intersection of child welfare, human rights and criminal justice.
As a passionate leader in the global movement to end human trafficking, Ali co-founded several organizations, networks, and coalitions at the forefront of the anti-trafficking field today including the International Organization for Adolescents (IOFA), Freedom Network USA, the Westchester County Anti-Trafficking Task Force, and the National Human Trafficking and Disabilities Working Group. She also served three years as the inaugural Director of the Global Center on Human Trafficking at Montclair State University.
For more than 25 years, she has worked alongside survivors of all forms of trafficking to develop innovative, survivor driven approaches to prevent and address human trafficking and related issues across the United States, Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia.
She began this journey when she discovered that traffickers were recruiting children and youth out of the schools, universities and orphanages where she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer and Fulbright Scholar in the Baltic States.
A recognized expert on the issue of child and adolescent trafficking and exploitation, she has provided training, technical assistance and capacity building support to hundreds of criminal justice, social service, and community organizations in more than 12 countries.
Ali is known for her collaborative work with the criminal justice sector to develop coordinated, community responses to prevent and respond to human trafficking. She has led and advised several multi-disciplinary task forces engaging local, state and federal law enforcement in in the United States and abroad. She is a co-author of a curriculum to educate law enforcement and has trained thousands of law enforcement across the globe.
Ali is a frequent lecturer, keynote speaker, and advisor to numerous organizations including Catholic Charities USA Advisory Task Force on Domestic Child Trafficking, the National Child Welfare Advisory Board, the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Victims of Crime Expert Working Group on Trafficking of Minors, the U.S. Department of Justice, President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Committed to training and supporting the next generation of human rights leaders, Ali and has taught and supervised fieldwork for graduate students at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University; Columbia University, School for International and Public Affairs (SIPA); and the University of Chicago. She served as the International Development and Human Rights Leader-in-Residence at the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York where she trained, taught, mentored and supervised fellows as they executed high impact service projects, conducted research, and raised awareness about critical international development and/or human rights issues.
Ali graduated Magna Cum Laude from the State University of New York at Albany with a B.A. in Political Science, International Affairs concentration and earned a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, the Division for Population and Family Health. She holds a certificate in Mentoring Supervision from Fordham
University and completed a 2-year fellowship in Community Engaged Teaching Learning at Montclair State University. Her other passions include yoga, playing golf and serving on the Town Board in her hometown of Pound Ridge, New York.