Jessica Hansen

Jessica (Jesi) Hansen joined NetAid as Youth Programs Assistant in April of 2007. In her role with the Programs Team, she supports the Director of Programs and assists other Program Staff in working with and educating youth. She works directly with the Global Citizen Corps leaders, assists with the annual Poverty Fighting Summit and supports the Global Action Awards.

Jesi came to NetAid from the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, where she had worked since 2005.  Before that, she worked and interned with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Washington, D.C., the Sydney Center for Refugee Research and Medecins San Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). She also worked for some time at the Smithsonian Natural History and Science Museum.

Jesi holds a Masters of Social Work in International Social Development from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, where she focused on forced migration, gender-based violence and human trafficking. Additionally, she has a BA in Political Science with an emphasis in International Relations and studied abroad as an undergraduate in Leicester, UK.

She has worked with or reported on a number of refugee issues worldwide, including writing and publishing reports on gender-based violence against Burmese refugees on the Thai-Burma border. She also worked with shelters for victims of human trafficking and rape crisis centers for a number of years.

Jesi is a product of East meets Mid-West, with a Thai mother and an Oklahoman father. An 'air force brat' and a general nomad, Jesi has lived and back-packed abroad (mostly around Western Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia) and picked up a random mix of languages along the way. She is an avid feminist, environmentalist and an aspiring writer, who also loves to read (especially books on astrophysics and quantum theory, even though she never quite understands them).