Lydia Aletraris

Lydia Aletraris brings a dual focus to her research, specializing in substance use and human trafficking issues. She is currently the principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health-funded project that examines the effects of cannabis legalization on the substance use disorder treatment industry. She has worked on several national research studies focusing on substance use treatment delivery and the use of evidence-based treatment practices as well as international studies on human trafficking. Aletraris has extensive experience conducting and managing projects funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S Department of State, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Dr. Aletraris previously served as the Assistant Director of the Center for Research on Behavioral Health and Human Services Delivery as well as the Associate Director of the  Center on Human Trafficking, Research & Outreach (CenHTRO) at the University of Georgia. She coordinated CenHTRO’s Prevalence Reduction Innovation Forum, which enlisted scholars from universities around the world to test the efficacy of various methodological approaches in measuring human trafficking prevalence, and conduct prevalence estimates in Brazil, Costa Rica, Morocco, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Tunisia.

Dr. Aletraris has served on the Regional Advisory Council of the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities and on Georgia’s Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force.