Alicia Kozak television personality Internet safety advocate and founder of The Alicia Project in confident branding portrait seated on black stool against industrial brick backdrop, photographed by Chicago portrait photographer Michael Schacht of 312 Elements

Photo: Michael Schacht / 312 Elements

Alicia Kozak

Alicia Kozak — television personality, Internet safety advocate, and founder of The Alicia Project — portrait by Michael Schacht, 312 Elements Chicago

By Michael SchachtChicago, IL

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Photo: <a href="https://312elements.com">312 Elements Headshot Photography</a>

About Alicia Kozak

Alicia Kozakiewicz — known publicly as Alicia Kozak — is a television personality, motivational speaker, and one of America's leading advocates for Internet safety and the protection of missing and exploited children. A survivor of the first widely publicized Internet-lured child abduction in the United States in 2002, Alicia founded The Alicia Project at just fourteen years old and has spent over two decades educating children, parents, educators, and law enforcement professionals about online exploitation, digital predators, and the practical steps that can prevent victimization. Her personal story of survival, resilience, and transformation from victim to advocate has made her one of the most powerful voices in the national conversation about child safety in the digital age.

Advocacy and Alicia's Law

Alicia Kozak's advocacy work has produced measurable, legislative impact on a scale that few individual advocates have achieved. Alicia's Law — named in her honor — has been enacted in eleven states across the United States, providing dedicated funding for Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task forces that investigate online exploitation, rescue victims, and prosecute offenders. The legislation represents a direct pipeline from personal testimony to policy change: Alicia has testified before state legislatures and on Capitol Hill, translating her lived experience into the kind of compelling, evidence-based advocacy that moves lawmakers to action. Each state that passes Alicia's Law adds investigators, forensic analysts, and resources to the fight against online child exploitation — a tangible legacy that will protect children for generations beyond her own lifetime of advocacy.

Television and Media

As a television personality and media figure, Alicia Kozak has appeared on virtually every major broadcast platform in the United States and internationally. She has been a guest on Oprah, Good Morning America, Dr. Phil, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and the BBC, bringing her message of awareness, prevention, and survivor empowerment to audiences numbering in the tens of millions. She is the subject of the Emmy Award-winning documentary Alicia's Story, which chronicled her abduction, rescue, and the extraordinary advocacy career that followed. Her media presence is not built on sensationalism but on the quiet, authoritative credibility of someone who has transformed the worst possible experience into a lifetime of service to others — a quality that makes her equally effective speaking to a room of schoolchildren, a conference of law enforcement professionals, or a national television audience.

Education and Professional Training

Alicia Kozak holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Master's degree in Forensic Psychology, academic credentials that complement her experiential expertise and give her advocacy work a foundation in research, clinical understanding, and evidence-based practice. This educational background allows her to speak not only from personal experience but from a position of professional authority on topics including trauma response, predator behavior patterns, digital forensics, and the psychological frameworks that help families, schools, and communities build effective prevention strategies. She has trained FBI agents, police detectives, social workers, and educators, translating complex psychological research into actionable intelligence that frontline professionals can apply immediately.

The Portrait

This branding portrait by photographer Michael Schacht — industrial brick, muted greens, and quiet confidence against a raw studio backdrop — reflects the resilience and authority that Alicia Kozak carries into every speaking engagement, from school auditoriums to state capitols to international media studios. The image was captured at Michael Schacht's 312 Elements studio in Chicago, a portrait designed to honor an advocate whose life's work demonstrates that survival is not the end of a story but the beginning of one.