Kara Napolitano

Kara Napolitano, M.A., M.S., is an affiliate faculty member at Metropolitan State University of Denver and the education and partnerships director at the Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking (LCHT) in Denver. Her expertise includes human trafficking, forced labor, labor exploitation and broader issues of social justice.

At LCHT, Napolitano has trained more than 50,000 professionals across Colorado — including law enforcement, health care providers and youth-serving organizations — on how to identify and respond to both labor and sex trafficking. She also serves on the governor’s Colorado Human Trafficking Council Prevention Task Force and the Equitable Access Task Force, and is a commissioner on the Denver Crime Prevention and Control Commission, where she helps shape state and local responses to exploitation and crime prevention.

A professional public speaker and trainer, Napolitano regularly addresses audiences in Colorado, across the United States and internationally on human trafficking prevention and response. She has been interviewed by several local news stations in Denver and Colorado Springs and has delivered a TEDx talk on the subject.

Napolitano holds a master’s degree in international development with a concentration in international human rights law from the University of Denver. Before graduate school, she spent eight years working and volunteering with NGOs in post-conflict contexts across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where she first encountered the complexities of human trafficking.