Megan Lundstrom was the founder and Executive Director of Colorado-based, nationally serving non-profit, Free Our Girls in 2014. After a six-month, intensive and intentional strategic planning process over the fall of 2019 and into the spring of 2020, Free Our Girls’ board and executive staff collectively decided that a name change and re-branding was necessary in order to communicate more inclusively to the ages and genders of the survivors we walk alongside. The Avery Center was formed in 2020 from this process. Ms. Lundstrom is the Co-Founder and Director of Research at The Avery Center. This new brand also formally includes the academic research, training, consulting, and policy advocacy work that their organization now performs. The organization is dedicated to economic empowerment of survivors of domestic sex trafficking and specializes in programming and advocacy in rural areas. The Avery Center is dedicated to survivor-centered academic applied research on the commercial sex trade.
Ms. Lundstrom began consulting with Larimer County’s Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children’s Multi-Disciplinary Response Team in 2017 and has remained a steering committee member through the present. Ms. Lundstrom has been a consultant for the Department of Homeland Security’s Blue Campaign, and Polaris on On-Ramps, Intersections, and Exit Routes, as well as Integrating Survivor Voice Into Research. She has created and delivered numerous training and educational presentations both in the academic community as well as for agencies such as UC Health, Planned Parenthood, Delta Airlines, American College of Nurse-Midwives, United States Department of Agriculture, the Colorado Organization for Victims Advocacy, Girls Education and Mentoring Services, and the Commercial Sexual Exploitation Institute at Villanova University Law School. Ms. Lundstrom is currently a fellow for the Office for Trafficking in Persons’ Human Trafficking Leadership Academy.
Ms. Lundstrom was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from the Colorado Front Range Anti-Trafficking Coalition, and Free Our Girls was awarded the Education and Innovation Award in 2018 from Group Publishing and the Right on the Money award from the Consumers United Association for Taking Flight, the organization’s economic empowerment direct service program and financial literacy curriculum for survivors of commercial sexual exploitation. Ms. Lundstrom’s research on cultic theory was internationally published through United Nations University’s Delta 8.7 and presented at the International Cultic Studies Association annual conference, both in 2018.
Ms. Lundstrom holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance and a Master’s degree in Sociology, both from the University of Northern Colorado.