Shanna Batten Aguirre is a Senior Justice Advisor with the United States Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Formerly, she was the Senior Justice Advisor for the Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism, Office of Programs. Shanna tracks criminal justice trends around the world to inform program development and contributes legal and policy analysis to the Departments rule of law efforts.
Before her work in the Department of State, Shanna was the program director for the Community Resilience program at the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security, a crisis management policy center. In that capacity, she spearheaded the development of a framework, coordinating community and law enforcement to prevent targeted violence and domestic terrorism. For many years prior, Shanna served as a senior trial attorney in US-DOJ’s Office of International Affairs, coordinating international criminal investigations and prosecutions. Her cases involved terrorism, cybercrimes, human trafficking, narcotics, corruption, and money laundering. Her legal career began as a prosecutor of gang homicides and sexual assaults in Los Angeles, California.
Shanna is a citizen and legal advisor of the Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia and has consistently volunteered as a board member, crisis counselor, community educator, and mentor with organizations supporting youth development, survivors of sexual violence, and anti-human trafficking efforts. She attended Duke University and received her juris doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law.