Elena Shih is the Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies, and Faculty Affiliate in the Departments of Sociology, East Asian Studies, and Watson Institute for International Studies. Professor Shih teaches courses on human trafficking, labor migration and sex work, social enterprise, East and Southeast Asian borderlands, critical humanitarianism studies, and ethnographic methods. 

In April of this year, she published, "Manufacturing Freedom: Sex Work, Anti-Trafficking Rehab and the Racial Wages of Rescue” (University of California Press), a global ethnography of the transnational social movement to combat human trafficking in China, Thailand, and the United States.

As a Faculty Fellow at the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, since 2015, Shih has directed a Human Trafficking research cluster that trains students to work on different collaborative research projects. Since 2018, the research cluster has worked on a collaborative research project documenting the Policing of Asian Massage Work, with Red Canary Song, a collective of migrant massage workers, sex workers and allies. Last Fall, Shih published a co-edited volume, “White Supremacy, Racism, and the Coloniality of Anti-Trafficking,” with Kamala Kempadoo, that featured some of the research cluster’s work.

Shih serves on the editorial boards for The Anti-Trafficking Review, a peer-reviewed journal of the Global Alliance to Combat Traffic in Women, and open Democracy's Beyond Trafficking and Slavery oped platform. In Providence, she is a proud board member for the Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance. Shih earned a PhD in Sociology from UCLA, and BA in Asian Studies and Women's Studies from Pomona College. The Asian / Asian American Alumni Alliance (A4) is honoring Professor Shih with the Robert G. Lee '80 PhD A4 Community Champion Award in recognition of her commitment to social justice and the Asian and Asian American experience in her research, on campus, and in our wider communities. Among the many examples of her work outside of academics, in the wake of the 2021 Atlanta mass shooting and alongside the global Movement for Black Lives, Professor Shih collaborated with her peers at the Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice (CSSJ) and worked with the Inman Page Black Alumni Council (IPC) and the Asian/Asian American Alumni Alliance (4A) to host a panel discussion on the history of and possibilities stemming from solidarity between Black and Asian communities against state violence and white supremacy. In the aftermath of the Atlanta shootings, Professor Shih was also a nationwide voice – writing pieces and being quoted in the New York Times and Washington Post among other news outlets --- drawing attention to the marginalization of migrants, refugees, low-wage workers, sex workers, and undocumented people. Among her students, Professor Shih has been praised as not only an illuminating professor and mentor, but also a champion for many AAPI students.