Casey Branchini Risko, PhD, MHS, is a Fellow in the Human Exploitation and Resilience program of the NYU Marron Institute and an internationally recognized expert in anti-trafficking evaluation methodologies and prevalence estimation techniques with over 15 years of experience in research, intervention development, implementation, and evaluation of complex interventions, primarily in the human trafficking space. Her work focuses on bridging rigorous research and evaluation methods with real-world program implementation, consistently applying evidence-based findings to advance anti-trafficking efforts and close critical knowledge gaps between research and practice.

Most recently, Dr. Risko served as a Senior Advisor on the Program to End Modern Slavery (PEMS) team at the U.S. Department of State's Trafficking in Persons Office (TIP Office), where she provided technical expertise on the Office's global research portfolio spanning more than 35 countries and valued at over $160 million. In this role, she managed various research projects and led the Office's efforts to develop a universal statistical definition of human trafficking. She also spearheaded the Office's initiative to fund intervention development research and the first-ever developmental evaluation of anti-trafficking interventions.

Prior to her work at the TIP Office, Casey served as the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning Director for Free the Slaves, overseeing their global counter-trafficking initiatives in Nepal, Ghana, and the Dominican Republic. She also spent several years as an independent consultant for international organizations, including the International Labour Organization, International Organization for Migration, and the World Health Organization.

Dr. Risko holds a Ph.D. in International Health, Health Systems from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, as well as an MHS and BA from Johns Hopkins University. Her dissertation explored the intersection of health and labor rights violations among migrant workers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her research portfolio includes quality improvement work, having conducted systematic literature reviews of 100+ publications on quality improvement projects for maternal and child health services and developed health system improvement training materials for facilitators in Afghanistan. She has also conducted prevalence estimates of forced marriage and childbearing among Burmese women in Yunnan Province, China, and an examination of health impacts of human rights violations among North Korean defectors.

She is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles and policy reports, including recent work published in the Journal of Human Trafficking and Violence Against Women. Dr. Risko has received multiple honors, including the Meritorious Honor Award from the U.S. Department of State for her contributions to evaluation effectiveness and establishing global trafficking measurement standards. She is currently based in the Washington, DC area, where she lives with her husband and their two energetic boys.