Dawn Schiller is the Training Director, L.A. County Project for the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST). She is a Lived Experience Expert Consultant in the anti-trafficking, domestic violence and sexual assault movements. Abused and trafficked on the streets of Hollywood in her youth her subsequent years of struggle to survivorship, education and service to others offer valuable first-hand insight to community advocates. Today, she is a national speaker, educator, consultant and author.

Dawn earned her undergraduate degree summa cum laude in 2012 from Eastern Oregon University with honors in communication and gender studies. She received the “Women of Vision and Courage” award from EOU President’s Commission on the Status of Women. She is a Phi Kappa Phi Kathleen Greey Fellow and received a teaching fellowship from Oregon State University earning her Master of Arts in Women, Gender, & Sexuality in 2020. Dawn is a VISTO volunteer and regularly visits the girls in Los Angeles juvenile halls who struggle with substance abuse, sharing her experience, strength, hope, and recovery.

Dawn taught Women’s Studies and Activism at Oregon State University. Her academic presentations and trainings infuse lived experience on topics of anti-violence, anti-trafficking (Commercial Sexual Exploitation & Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children), trauma and trauma-informed care, teen/child abuse, the media, ally-ship, resilience, addiction, recovery and healing. Her memoir, “The Road Through Wonderland,” was published by Medallion Press.

Nationally, Dawn is a violence and human trafficking expert consultant with the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime, the Department of Health & Human Services Office on Trafficking in Persons (NHTTAC) and the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. She is a founding member of “Survivor 2 Survivor” (S2S) and member of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking’s (CAST) “Resilient Voices.”

Above all else, Dawn’s greatest joy is the privilege to be a parent to her talented child.