Em Loerzel is a White Earth Anishinaabekwe who received her BA in sociology at Elmhurst College and her MSW at Aurora University. Her practice experience includes work in the areas of chronic mental health, homelessness, domestic violence, community organising, and human trafficking. As a fifth-year social welfare PhD candidate at the University of Washington, her work and research are around intimate partner/sexual violence in the Native community and sex trafficking of Native women. She is currently a tribal research assistant on a study that aims to examine risk factors for intimate partner homicide.