Korrin Moon, a 2023 graduate of Penn State Dickinson Law, was one of eight Penn State alumni recently honored with the 2025 Alumni Achievement Award, one of the Alumni Association’s most prestigious honors. As part of the award festivities, Moon returned to the Lewis Katz Building on Thursday, March 27, to share her experience with current students, faculty, and staff.
Speaking to a group in a Katz classroom in University Park, and a virtual cohort from the Carlisle location, Moon recounted her experiences, both in her undergraduate time at Lycoming College and her time as a U.S. Marine Corps Russian translator and intelligence analyst, that exposed her to the tragedy of human trafficking. It was during her time working as a volunteer for a non-profit that she saw the issues in how most were operating in the field, and she decided to start her own organization that would work from a unique model: training local officials to do the rescues.
From that idea came Lantern Rescue, a nonprofit organization that has rescued over 2,000 human trafficking victims and arrested more than 1,000 traffickers. Moon is the president and co-founder, and remains actively involved in the organization’s work. As part of that work, she speaks to and works directly with state representatives and law enforcement to educate them and clear up a multitude of misconceptions about human trafficking, many of which she explained are a barrier to prosecuting more cases. She also does outreach to small businesses throughout Pennsylvania to raise their awareness of the issue so that they might recognize cases of human trafficking when they occur.
Lantern Rescue started its work in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and is now in 15 countries. The organization also helps to facilitate the after-care process that is critical following a rescue.
Now serving as a special prosecutor for Lycoming County focusing on human trafficking cases, Moon recently testified before the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Republican Committee and serves on the Northeastern Pennsylvania Trafficking Task Force. Although Moon has a high conviction rate in her two years as special prosecutor, she emphasized to current students that she has learned many lessons in that time.
“When stuff doesn’t go your way, you have to learn from it,” Moon said. “There is always a lesson. But as long as you do everything to your utmost ability, 100%, you can’t go wrong. At least you tried.”
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