Honors alumna fights forced labor with biology background

Shannon Stewart got into human trafficking because someone asked her about it.

The University Honors Program alumna earned her Biology degree in 2006 before completing her masters and doctorate degrees in the same field from Yale University. She now works as a data scientist at the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS), an organization that finances efforts to combat human trafficking and exploitation. But the jump from biology to social science isn’t as big as it might initially appear.

“I work with business data mostly, but fundamentally it's data that's generated from human beings. Human beings are animals. So the quality of data I get is really similar to actual lab experimentation,” Stewart said.

After graduate school, Stewart worked for the Center for Biomedical Innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There she was tasked with helping the Food and Drug Administration identify adulterated food and medicine. These imports are made with cheap substitutes designed to pass initial testing that indicates authenticity. It was this work that would eventually lead her to human trafficking.

“Originally that project started out with small molecule chemistry and analysis of clinical toxicology reports. But over time it became increasingly about the supply chains that are used in the manufacturing of medicines,” Stewart said.

“What I found was that the type of people who would adulterate a medicine on purpose basically have no scruples, and they commit every kind of business crime they think they can get away with. They're cheating on their taxes, they're dumping chemicals in the environment, and in some cases, they're using forced labor.”

Her work with the FDA attracted the attention of others investigating criminal business activity. Stewart was asked to co-author a report on the trafficking of North Korean migrant workers. Exiles of the regime detailed how the country’s government sent laborers overseas, took their wages, and laundered the money to purchase nuclear weapons materiel.

“Somebody had a group of documents that showed how this network works. And they didn't know how to put it together in a way that shows what's really going on. So based on my experience modeling supply chains, I was like, ‘well there is a solution for this,’” recalled Stewart.

Now at GFEMS, Stewart uses a technique frequently taught in business schools called operations research. This involves mapping supply chains to find patterns in the number of manufacturers, shippers, and buyers in a given industry. Many businesses try to keep their supply chains simple, but those that use forced labor often try to hide their trail through numerous shell companies.

“Working in the field of biology before I became a data scientist helped me hone the ability to see the signal in spite of the weird thing that some animal gives you,” she said. “The trends to outliers ratio in business data is really similar to the behavioral data I got in biology.”

This interdisciplinary approach is a hallmark of an Honors education at KU. The Program seeks to foster lifelong critical thinking and promote service to others.

Stewart’s research undoubtedly accomplishes this. Because her work is supported philanthropically, she’s been able to make her models completely open source. This can help regulatory agencies and nonprofit groups more efficiently detect forced labor. And corporations are more incentivized to audit their own supply chains if anyone can act as a watchdog.

“I'm really excited that it gets to be out in the world and have a life beyond the time that I worked on it,” Stewart said.