Abigail Judge, PhD, a national expert on human trafficking and a clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General, has received a Community Leadership Award from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in recognition for her service to survivors of sex trafficking.
Dr. Judge along with her colleague Sandra Andrade helped found Boston Human Exploitation and Trafficking, or HEAT, a collaborative program with the Boston police department’s human trafficking unit and Mass General Hospital.
FBI Director Christopher Wray along with Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division, honored Dr. Judge at the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC to emphasize the importance of community partnerships.
“Today, we honor Dr. Judge’s dedication and commitment to working with us, and the community to help victims escape this cycle of vicious abuse and provide them with access to vital resources. Meanwhile, FBI Boston’s Child Exploitation – Human Trafficking Task Force will continue to work every day to bring the predators who viciously abuse them to justice”, said Cohen.
Dr. Judge and Andrade were featured last year in an award-winning series on NBC “Trapped and Trafficked” that focuses on human trafficking in Massachusetts.
Judge AM. Uncharted Waters: Developing Mental Health Services for Survivors of Domestic Human Sex Trafficking. Harv Rev Psychiatry. 2018 Sep/Oct;26(5):287-297.
Pollock S, Ferree S, Cronin M, Judge AM, Berson DS, Friedman PM, Grimes PE, Murase JE, Freeman EE, Rao M, Malik S, Balk R, Miller J, Cronin TA Jr, Kourosh AS. Dermatology’s role in the fight against human trafficking: A report from the AAD Ad Hoc Task Force and call to action. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2024 Feb;90(2):339-341.
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Abigail Judge, PhD is a clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry, an instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School, and the founder of MGH Connect. Her clinical work at MGH focuses on women affected by commercial sexual exploitation. She leads an outpatient psychotherapy clinic for this population and is currently piloting low threshold services for women with opioid use disorder experiencing sexual exploitation and sex trafficking at the MGH Substance Use Disorder Bridge Clinic.
