Shea Rhodes is the Co-Founder and Director of the Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE Institute) at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. Shea works with and on behalf of survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking. She is a national expert on laws related to sex trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation, and prostitution policy.

Shea’s work at the Charles Widger School of Law also includes teaching the course Human Trafficking, which seeks to address human trafficking from the legal and policy perspectives. This course explores the laws related to the various needs of human trafficking survivors, rhetoric, and popular culture perceptions of human trafficking, and how to respond to the diverse physical, emotional, and psychological needs of survivors through trauma-informed lawyering skills.

Ms. Rhodes was awarded a 2021-2022 U.S. Fulbright Scholar grant for the Fulbright-Schuman

European Union Affairs Program by the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright

Foreign Scholarship Board to conduct research in Austria and Sweden.

Ms. Rhodes is also a member of several anti-trafficking initiatives, locally and internationally,

including Philadelphia’s Anti-Trafficking Coalition, the Pennsylvania Anti-Human Trafficking

Advocacy Work Group (PAHTAWG), Shared Hope International’s JuST Response Council.

and World Without Exploitation (WorldWE). She also sits on the Board of Directors for Dawn’s

Place, a residential treatment program for women who are victims of commercial sexual

exploitation and sex trafficking.

Prior to forming the CSE Institute in 2014, Ms. Rhodes served the Philadelphia community as an Assistant District Attorney. During that time, she helped found Project Dawn Court and develop a Law Enforcement Working Group to facilitate effective handling of human trafficking cases. Before joining the District Attorney’s Office, she served as a staff attorney for the Crime Victim’s Law Project where she represented victims of sexual violence. She regularly conducts trainings and presentations throughout the Commonwealth and nationally. Ms. Rhodes written materials, including policy papers, legal resources, and newsletters, can be found on the CSE Institute website. 

She is a graduate of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law and the University of Kansas.  Ms. Rhodes lives in Philadelphia with her husband Paul and Peet-the-cat.