Gretchen Effgen is the founder of Amplify Global, and an entrepreneurial, international business development consultant with nearly 15 years experience in international trade and development.

Gretchen started her career working with the governments of the Republic of Korea, People's Republic of China, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), in Washington, DC. During her 4 years in Washington, DC, Gretchen honed her knowledge of the legislative process, global trade issues, and international human rights concerns.

After completing her MBA at London Business School, Gretchen was awarded the prestigious Presidential Management Fellowship. This allowed her to spend a year focusing on entrepreneurial funding issues before helping launch the start-up World Notes, producer of award winning, multi-cultural educational media.

For the last several years, Gretchen has worked with firms of all sizes through Amplify Global, which assists businesses with their international expansion needs, and reserves considerable productive time for pro bono projects in the developing world.

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Kira joined Harvard Management Company in 1997 and has worked as an analyst and trader in the Emerging Markets Equity Portfolio since 2002. Harvard Management Company seeks to provide world-class investment management focused solely on generating strong results to support the educational and research objectives of Harvard University.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Political Science from Loyola University (1994).

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Since 2007, Anna has been the Director of Research and Development at The Protection Project, a leading human rights and anti-human trafficking research center at the Foreign Policy Institute of The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington D.C.

Previously, she served in the capacity of Human Rights Program Coordinator with The Protection Project, coordinating and carrying out field research on trafficking in persons and related topics.

From 1999 to 2001, Ms. Koppel worked at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, where she provided administrative and technical support for two peer-reviewed, competitive research grant programs sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) aimed at fostering scientific collaboration among researchers in the Middle East and between Israeli research centers with those in Central Asia and Africa.

Ms. Koppel received her Master’s degree in International Relations with concentrations in International Development and International Economics in May of 2003 from Johns Hopkins-SAIS and her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Maryland in May 1999.

Ms. Koppel is fluent in English and Russian and conversational in Italian.

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Amanda hails from the world of interior design but in January, 2009, decided to pursue her long standing interest in Human Rights by joining the BITAHR team.

Amanda graduated from The New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University with a Bachelor of Arts in Interior Design and has worked for well-known Boston-based designers.

During Amanda’s professional career as an interior designer she has spent time engaging in charity work, running road races to benefit various causes, and finding creative ways to assist others.
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Alicia has worked on issues of human trafficking since 2006, when she joined the staff of The Protection Project at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (JHU-SAIS) in Washington DC. Alicia has worked on a variety of human rights issues, focusing on child sex trafficking in both domestic and international contexts and other forms of violence against women. More...

Rebecca Merrill is the acting Executive Director of the Boston Initiative to Advance Human Rights (BITAHR). Rebecca has been combating the issue of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation since 2008. She oversees all the programmatic, financial, and operational areas of the organization, including leadership over the consulting and internship staff and collaboration with the Board of Directors. More...