Shawna Ferris teaches and researches in the areas of sex work/prostitution studies, critical race studies, decolonization, and violence against women, with an emphasis on representation and resistance. She is interested in cultural representations of and responses to sex work/ers, as well as cultural marginalization, and raced classed and gendered violence resulting from the same. Her current research examines anti-violence, anti-racism, and decolonization-oriented commemorative activism stemming from the growing number of missing and murdered women in urban centres across Canada.