« Back to people

Christina Rapson

Christina Arnold's professional trajectory was driven by her upbringing in South and Southeast Asia where she encountered exploited children daily. Christina has worked passionately for human rights since she moved to the U.S. at age 20.  Christina founded Prevent Human Trafficking (PHT) in 1999, as a vehicle to support a handful of innovative human rights organizations working under the radar in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia - using video and other technology to document and promote their work.

Since then, she has raised over $ 2M for grassroots partner organizations & taken more than 100 students (of all ages) to Southeast Asia every summer to learn about human trafficking issues first hand. Her expertise has contributed to policy and legislative change, such as the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000.

Christina is a Harry S. Truman Scholar and Jack Kent Cooke Scholar. She holds a B.A. in political science with honors from American University where she also completed a Masters of Public Administration with a focus on non-profit management and social entrepreneurship as a Presidential Scholar-in-Residence. Being admitted to ITP was the sweetest experience of her life to date, and thanks the NYU Reynolds Fellowship in Social Entrepreneurship for making it possible.  When she's not in NY, she lives in Washington, DC with her daughter.