Denise Brennan is Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Georgetown University. She has conducted research with the first survivors of human trafficking to the United States, life inside the U.S. "100-Mile Border Zone" for undocumented people, and rural to urban migration to sell sex in the Dominican Republic (What's Love Got to Do with It? Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic, Duke University Press).

Her most recent book (Life Interrupted: Trafficking into Forced Labor in the United States, Duke University Press) highlights the connection between undocumented status (and work visas) and labor exploitation. Life Interrupted also counters panics over trafficking into the sex sector. She currently is writing a book that explores how undocumented individuals navigate state surveillance through racial profiling, and the constant threat of detention and deportation (Love and Heartache Across Borders: Living without Authorization in the United States). As part of the research for Love and Heartache across Borders, Professor Brennan drove coast to coast -- from Jacksonville to Los Angeles -- inside the "100-Mile Border Zone" (an enhanced immigration enforcement zone).

Professor Brennan's research has been supported by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the American Association of University Women, and the Fulbright Program. Professor Brennan founded the Trafficking Survivor Leadership Training Fund to which all royalties from Life Interrupted are donated. She teaches two courses related to migration: Refugees, Asylees, Migrants and Trafficked Persons: Global Displacement in A Hostile Time and On the Move: Migration, Labor and Rights.