Marissa Castellanos joined Love146 in February 2023 as Director of Grants, providing support for continued development of prevention and survivor care programming. Prior to arriving at Love146, Marissa worked at Catholic Charities of Louisville where she began in 2008 developing what is now known as the Bakhita Empowerment Initiative, a statewide program addressing human trafficking through services, prevention, training, and awareness.
Marissa is a representative member of the National Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Children and Youth in the U.S. and led the planning and implementation of the first National Labor Trafficking Conference, hosted in Louisville, KY in October 2018.
Marissa received her Bachelor of Science and Master’s in Social Work from the University of Kentucky, where she has also worked as an adjunct professor. Marissa has been a peer reviewer for the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services, and provides training and technical assistance for the ACF Office on Trafficking in Persons.
In 2023, Marissa was honored as a recipient of the Visionary Voice Award by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, which “recognizes creativity and hard work of individuals around the country who have demonstrated outstanding work to end sexual violence”.
