Originally from Fujian, China, Allison Gao came to the U.S. at the age of 9. She attended Franklin & Marshall College as a Posse Scholar and earned her B.A. in Public Health. After graduation, she was selected as a Fellow with Immigrant Justice Corps, the first immigration law fellowship in the nation. In that role, she was a Board of Immigration Appeals accredited representative where she represented low-income immigrants on various forms of humanitarian immigration relief. Allison also worked at the Center for Court Innovation where she helped implement a community service program under New York City’s 2016 Criminal Justice Reform Act. Currently, Allison is a paralegal with New York Legal Assistance Group’s Immigrant Protection Unit. She is also a part-time research assistant with Praesidium Partners, an intelligence-driven anti-human trafficking advocacy group. Her work focuses on Chinese illicit massage parlors’ role in facilitating human trafficking from China to the U.S.