CARRIE BENSON | PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

Carrie Benson
Director of Sexual Violence Prevention and Education, University of Pittsburgh

Carrie Benson knows how hard it can be for students who experience sexual violence to study, focus on their schoolwork, engage with their peers and figure out who they are at an instrumental time in their lives.

“We need to take away all the barriers to people being able to reach their full potential,” she says. As Pitt’s inaugural director of Sexual Violence Prevention and Education, Benson creates innovative trainings on consent, relationships and bystander intervention, partners with agencies around the region, provides support to survivors and much more.

She’s also continued this fight beyond Pitt by starting a program to provide care packages to survivors of intimate partner violence and creating a committee for professionals at local colleges and universities to share best practices so all can have the tools to stop sexual violence on campuses.

“Moving the needle just a little leads to real, lasting, large-scale change over time,” she says.