Jess Michaels makes it her mission to challenge the stigma around sexual violence and ensure no victim has to lose decades of their life to unprocessed trauma.
Supporting survivors is a cause close to Michaels’ heart; in 1991, she was sexually assaulted by high-profile financier Jeffrey Epstein, who made headlines after his 2019 arrest for sex trafficking charges involving minors and other victims, CNBC reported. Michaels’ work is geared toward changing the narrative around the effects of sexual trauma.
“The most important thing that I want people to understand is that sexual assault is an injury before it is a crime, and it deserves care before interrogation,” Michaels said.
Michaels guest spoke at a club meeting for Student Activists Against Sexual Assault on Tuesday evening at the Howard Gittis Student Center. At the event, the TedED speaker and sexual assault advocate unveiled her new app, 3Joannes, a resource aimed at revolutionizing sexual assault responses and educating users on appropriate trauma response protocols.
About 30 people attended the meeting and were among the first to try Michaels’ app, named after her friend Joanne, who was the first person she confided in about her assault.
For crises like fires or school shootings, victims are trained with first aid and emergency drills, Michaels said. For cases involving sexual assault however, she has not experienced this level of preparedness.
She especially saw this disparity during the response to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. As a Newtown, Connecticut native, Michaels closely felt the effects of the shooting and, as she saw response plans implemented, she began to wish for a similar system for sexual assault survivors.
Intended as a crisis support resource, 3Joannes helps build a crisis support group of “Joannes,” or supporters who pledge to be responsive in the event of sexual assault. The app is especially curated for people dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Sexual assault survivors experienced higher rates of PTSD than combat veterans, and costs the United States $127 billion a year as a societal issue, according to her team’s research.
SAASA president Ray Epstein connected with Michaels after seeing her posts on social media about her experience with assault.
“I just felt compelled to message her because I thought it might be a really hard time,” Ray Epstein said.
Michaels’ and Ray Epstein’s relationship cultivated a promise that Michaels would test out the app at SAASA. When speaking to current SAASA members about the club’s activity on campus, Michaels chose this group to unveil the app due to their activism in supporting victims of sexual assault.
“[Michaels] was like, ‘When this app is ready to be demoed, I’m coming to your club.’ So this has been two years in the making,” Ray Epstein said.
Marie Levasseur, a freshman marketing major who attended the event, remembers Temple’s sexual assault education: a brief, mandatory web quiz for incoming freshmen. Users don’t have to pay attention to the page and can click through the lessons. 3Joanne, in contrast, is easy to use and better equipped to educate students, she said.
“[Michaels] makes it very accessible,” Levasseur said. “And we’re talking about something pretty morbid.”
The event Tuesday was a beta test for the app. Throughout the prototype stage, Michaels is openly accepting feedback from prospective users.
Isabelle Bernard, a senior psychology major on the club’s executive board, provided insight on the club’s monthly survivors circle, one of SAASA’s greatest initiatives that made the group prime for the app’s beta testing.
“I find [it] to be really empowering for people to come and feel that network of support and comfort,” Bernard said concerning the monthly meetings.“I think that’s super powerful.”
SAASA’s work has foundational ties with It’s On Us, a national organization created by the Obama administration to combat campus sexual assault by outlining students’ preventative action and education. It’s On Us has provided SAASA with funding and tools to help the group thrive, which Samantha Smith, a master’s student in neuroscience, said has taken flight under Ray’s leadership.
“I think Ray has done something incredible with [SAASA] and it has really taken off its own kind of light aside from Its On Us because we do so much to make actionable change as well as to support survivors and to give voice to a community that often is forgotten,” Smith said.
The app’s launch date for general use is set for August 2025. Michaels wants 3Joannes to completely change the narrative around sexual assault first aid, offering support to a long-standing social issue that affects millions every day.
“I want nothing to be the same about this topic when I’m done with it,” Michaels said.
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