Trawen holds an undergraduate tourism degree from University of Otago, New Zealand as well as Master of Tourism from James Cook University, Australia and has recently graduated with a Master of Planning, University of Otago, New Zealand. Her thesis was based on Community Participation Limitations in Tourism Planning. She was recently appointed as the Deputy Lead Sheppard for the APEC Tourism Working Group. She has been working with the PNGTPA for the past 10 years. Prior to this she was a Tourism Lecturer at the Divine Word University, PNG where she established and taught the first PNG undergraduate degree program in the tourism and hospitality field in 2005. She has also worked in the hotel industry in PNG. She is a Board Member of The Voice Inc, a homegrown Papua New Guinean NGO run by youth.