Jamie Gates, Ph.D.

Dr. Jamie Gates, cultural anthropologist and former director of Point Loma Nazarene University’s Center for Justice & Reconciliation, pursues the connection between faith, scholarship and activism.  While he has a national reputation as an expert on human trafficking, Jamie’s passion, scholarly activity and activism include immigration and border relations as well as racial and economic justice.  Human trafficking work has dominated in recent years.  Jamie co-led the groundbreaking research project “Measuring the Extent and Nature of Gang Involvement in Sex Trafficking in the San Diego/Tijuana Border Region (Links to an external site.)” (2016). For 7 years he co-chaired the Research and Data Committee of the San Diego County Advisory Council on Human Trafficking and CSEC. He founded the Human Trafficking Research and Data Advisory Roundtable (HT-RADAR) for San Diego County. He co-led the university in establishing the Beauty for Ashes Scholarship Fund for survivors of human trafficking to get their college degree. He co-led the efforts to develop a drama-based peer-to-peer human trafficking awareness and prevention curriculum in San Diego’s middle and high schools, called kNOw MORE.  For 2020-21 Jamie was consulting for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, https://www.missingkids.org/ (Links to an external site.), on their Gangs Taskforce, evaluating and improving services and partnerships for the organization.  In 2022 Jamie is serving on the Advisory Board for the Global Immersion Project (Links to an external site.), an organization that seeks to create everyday peacemakers.

“I am a dreamer, a connector, a teacher, a scholar and an activist with a deep calling to nurture the prophetic imagination (ask me about this if it's an unfamiliar phrase).”