Trude Jacobsen is an Associate Professor of Southeast Asian history at Northern Illinois University, where she has served as Assistant Director in the Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Prior to joining NIU in 2009, she taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University, and at the University of Queensland.
The child of humanitarian workers, Trude grew up in Indonesia and Cambodia in the 1980s and 1990s. She regularly consults for international agencies and NGOs on issues of gender and capacity-building. Her research is interdisciplinary, drawing upon her training in both anthropology and history. Lost Goddesses: The Denial of Female Power in Cambodian History (NIAS Press, 2008), her first book, explored the disconnect between a “traditional” view of Cambodian women and the reality of their pasts. Her second book, Sex Trafficking in Southeast Asia: A History of Desire, Duty, and Debt, will be published by Routledge in 2016.