Appointment of New Fellows of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics

Appointment of New Fellows of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. Hello everyone, I hope you are well. In today’s post, I will be sharing a press release on the appointment of new Fellows of the Oxford Centre for Animals Ethics. The Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics is delighted to announce the appointment of thirty-two new Fellows. The largest cohort of new Fellows the Centre has ever made. The Fellows are appointed for their outstanding contribution to the field of animal ethics worldwide. The Centre comprises over a hundred and twenty-five Fellows from countries worldwide.

 Appointment of New Fellows of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics

Academics, both from the sciences as well as the humanities, who are researching or intending to research in the field are eligible for consideration. Under the rules, the appointment is offered only once to successful individuals within their lifetime, and the appointment is by invitation or nomination only. Only a tiny proportion of those nominated are eventually selected.

“That such a large number of Fellows has been made is a testament to all the wonderful work being done in the field of animal ethics,” said Deputy Director Dr Clair Linzey.

The selection process is rigorous, thorough, and frequently lengthy, and individuals appointed have to have made (or be capable of making) an outstanding contribution to the field.

The new Fellows are:

Professor Sarah M. Bexell (University of Denver, CO), Fellow

Clinical Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Social Work, Director of Humane Education at the Institute for Human-Animal Connection, and Faculty Director of the Center for Sustainability, all at the University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA. She worked for over 20 years for critically endangered species on the brink of extinction, including golden lion tamarins and callimicos (Brazil), giant pandas and red pandas (China), and black-footed ferrets (North America). Through this work, it became clear that all species, including ours, are in jeopardy and endure immense suffering due to many value orientations that uphold human supremacy.

Today she works at the interface of human rights and the rights of all other species to thrive and persist toward creating a regenerative future for life on Earth. Her current work includes leading an academic focus on ecological justice, building a framework for regenerative education, and studying the mental health impacts of global environmental change with a focus on the sixth mass extinction. In her free time, she rescues dogs in China and fosters dogs in the U.S.

Professor Karen Bradshaw (Arizona State University, AZ), Fellow

A Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, where she teaches Property, Contracts, Environmental Law, Natural Resources, and Biodiversity. She is a Senior Sustainability Scientist at the Global Institute of Sustainability and a Faculty Affiliate Scholar at the New York University School of Law Classical Liberal Institute. Bradshaw is the author of the internationally acclaimed book Wildlife as Property Owners: A New Conception of Animal Rights. Wildlife as Property Owners was featured in the Official 2022 GRAMMY gift bags and was “highly recommended” in a Forbes book review. Bradshaw’s research and writing have been featured in prominent national media outlets, including Forbes, Fortune, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, National Public Radio, NPR’s Planet Money, and the New York Times.

She has published over twenty-five academic articles and a book on wildfire. Her transdisciplinary work includes collaborations with artists, economists, scientists, philosophers, nongovernmental organizations, and government agencies. Bradshaw was the Desert Humanities Institute Fellow for 2021-2022 and recipient of the 2020 Stegner Young Scholar Award. Bradshaw earned a JD with honours from the University of Chicago Law School, an MBA from California State University, Chico and a BS in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley. She grew up near the Klamath and McCloud Rivers and now resides in the Sonoran desert on rewilded land Certified Wildlife Habitat. 

Rebeka Breder (Breder Law, Canada), Associate Fellow

The founder of Breder Law in Vancouver, one of Canada’s first full-time animal law private practices. Her entire legal practice is devoted to protecting and advancing the interests of animals through litigating Animal law-related disputes.

When acting for individuals, Rebeka takes on cases such as the defence of dogs, condominium disputes, pet custody issues, wrongful death, and many others. When acting for organisations, Rebeka challenges government authority concerning its actions or inactions regarding animals, such as the live export of horses or killing wildlife. She also provides general animal law-related consulting. Her cases have, and continue, to set positive precedents for animals, including courts recognising the best interests of animals.

Awards

Rebeka has been recognised by various awards, including:

• The Top 25 Most Influential Lawyer in Canada by Canadian Lawyer Magazine, winning the Changemakers category (2019)
• Best Lawyers Canada (2022, 2023), and the SEEDS award by the International Society for Animal Rights (2019)

She was also honoured to be a TEDx speaker in November 2022. Rebeka helped start the University of British Columbia Allard Law School Animal Law course in 2013. She taught as an adjunct professor and has taught as an adjunct professor or guest lecturer at various other Canadian and international universities. She is the founder and current Chair of the first Canadian Bar Association animal law section (since 2008).

Rebeka’s submissions to the government have also been recently reflected in legislation dealing with the best interest of animals in pet custody disputes – a first of its kind in Canada. Rebeka provides legal input on other federal, provincial, and local animal protection issues. You may also see Rebeka featured in radio, television and print media, including in recent documentaries such as Part of the Pack (Knowledge Network) and CTV W5 on pet custody. Some of Rebeka’s work will be published in an encyclopedia (to be announced soon).

Dr Mark Causey (Georgia College & State University, GA), Fellow

A Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Religion, and Liberal Studies at Georgia College & State University. Mark earned his PhD in Philosophy at Emory University with a dissertation on Gilles Deleuze and his philosophical appropriation of the work of the French Surrealist Antonin Artaud. At Georgia College, he has designed and regularly teaches undergraduate classes on Food Ethics, Environmental Ethics, and Animal Ethics.

Mark’s main current research interest is in the intersections of veganism, environmentalism, animal rights, and social justice (with a particular interest in Indigenous perspectives). His article, “Nietzsche’s Hyperanthropos-Centrism” was published in The Trumpeter Journal of deep ecology (2014). His article, “Fellow Creatures: The Humean Case for Animal Ethics” was published in Between the Species (2015).  Mark recently wrote an argument piece for the Journal of Animal Ethics (2019) that investigates a virtue ethics approach.

Alice Di Concetto (The European Institute for Animal Law & Policy, Belgium), Fellow

Alice is the founder of The European Institute for Animal Law & Policy, a Brussels-based think tank specialising in EU animal law and policies. She is additionally a lecturer in European animal law at the Sorbonne Law School and in animal ethics Sciences Po Law School (Paris, France). In 2016 – 2018, Alice completed an appointment as a fellow in the Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School.

Her publication record includes several journal law review articles, including the European Journal of Risk Regulation, the European Journal of Consumer Law, and the French Animal Law Review. She is the author of the forthcoming book EU Animal Law (Edward Elgar Publishing). Alice earned a master’s degree in Animal Law (LL.M, 2016) from Lewis & Clark Law School, for which she obtained a Fulbright grant. She graduated from Sciences Po Law School (Master’s Degree, 2015). 

Professor John Drew (King’s University College at Western University, Canada), Fellow

An assistant professor in the Department of English, French, and Writing at King’s University College at Western University on the traditional and treaty lands of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Chonnonton, and Lūnaapéewak nations. He is an award-winning researcher who focuses on how human exceptionalism is embedded in education, specifically literary education, and the possibilities for alternative multispecies pedagogies.

John’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Environmental Humanities, Journal of Childhood Studies, Humanimalia, Childhood Geographies, and Animal Studies Journal, and his book, Animals in Literary Education: Towards Multispecies Empathy, is being published by Springer in the Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series.

John’s teaching and scholarship focus on animals and nature in literature and film; multispecies empathy and justice; children, youth, and environmental education; decolonising and anti-oppressive pedagogies; and writing and social change within the climate emergency. He recently designed an undergraduate course called Writing Humans and Other Animals in the Climate Emergency, which links these areas of emphasis. John is also a member of the Common Worlds Research Collective, dedicated to multispecies concerns and relations in education.

Professor Mylan Engel Jr. (Northern Illinois University, IL), Fellow

Presidential Engagement and Partnership Professor, Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Professor of Philosophy at Northern Illinois University and Faculty Associate of NIU’s Environment, Sustainability, and Energy Institute. He specializes in epistemology and animal ethics. Representative publications include:

• The Immorality of Eating Meat in The Moral Life (OUP, 2000)
• The Mere Considerability of Animals (2001),
• “Tierethik, Tierrechte, und moralische Integrität” [“Animal Rights, Animal Ethics, and Moral Integrity”] in Tierrechte: Eine interdisziplinäre Herausforderung (Harald Fischer Verlag, 2007),
• Vegetarianism” (2016),
• Demystifying Animal Rights (2018),
• Fishy Reasoning and the Ethics of Eating (2019),
• Epistemology and the Ethics of Animal Experimentation” in Applied Epistemology (OUP, 2021).

As some of these titles suggest, he is an “ethical vegan”—i.e., he believes we are morally obligated to refrain from eating animals and animal products—and has argued that virtually all humans hold beliefs that, if consistently applied, would make them ethical vegans. He also argues that animal experimentation should be abolished. His books include:

• The Moral Rights of Animals (co-edited with Gary Comstock) 
• The Philosophy of Animal Rights: A Brief Introduction for Students and Teachers (co-authored with Kathie Jenni). 

Professor Amy Fitzgerald (University of Windsor, Canada), Fellow

A Full Professor of Criminology in the Department of Sociology and Criminology, she holds a hybrid appointment with the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Windsor. She is the 2023-2025 University of Windsor Vice-President, Research and Innovation Research Chair. Her research focuses on the intersection of harms (criminal and otherwise) perpetrated against people, non-human animals, and the environment.

She works on three grant-funded projects and has published many peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and books. Recent book publications include:

• Animal Advocacy and Environmentalism: Understanding and Bridging the Divide (Polity Press)
• The Animals Reader: The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings (2nd ed., Routledge; co-edited with Linda Kalof)

Fitzgerald is a founding member of the Animal and Interpersonal Abuse Research Group, the recipient of a Distinguished Scholarship Award from the Animals and Society section of the American Sociological Association, the Mid-Career Outstanding Faculty Research Award from the University of Windsor, and was a visiting research fellow in the Animal Law and Policy Program at Harvard University in 2020.

Sophie Gaillard (Montreal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Canada), Fellow

An animal protection lawyer and the Director of Animal Advocacy and Legal Affairs at the Montreal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), where she oversees the organisation’s efforts to strengthen animal protection legislation and public policy at the municipal, provincial and federal levels, in addition to serving as the organisation’s head legal counsel.

Sophie also has over six years of experience supervising the SPCA’s animal protection officers, who are charged with enforcing both the Criminal Code’s animal cruelty provisions and provincial animal protection legislation and acting as a resource person for prosecutors and other law enforcement in animal cruelty matters.

Quebec

Sophie has played an instrumental role in securing significant victories for animals in Quebec, including putting an end to breed-specific legislation at both the municipal and provincial levels, successfully campaigning to have dogs allowed on Montreal’s public transit system and achieving a ban on horse-drawn carriages, in Montreal as well as a province-wide ban on the declawing of cats. She is one of the instigators of the Animals are not Things manifesto which led to the adoption of a new provision in the Civil Code of Quebec recognising animals as sentient beings and the passing of the first law exclusively devoted to animal protection in the province.

Sophie also spearheads cutting-edge strategic litigation efforts to further animals’ interests in the legal system by building on the recognition of animal sentience in Quebec law. She regularly testifies before legislative committees and works with politicians and political parties to advance animal protection.

She is also profiled and cited in local, provincial and national media regarding animal law and protection matters. Sophie is a frequent lecturer on animal law and teaches this topic at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. She co-authored a chapter about the potential use of private prosecutions for animal advocates in Canadian Perspectives on Animals and the Law (2015).

Chris Green (Harvard Law School, MA), Fellow

The Executive Director of the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School. He is the former Chair of the American Bar Association’s TIPS Animal Law Committee and previously was the Director of Legislative Affairs for the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Green wrote “The Future of Veterinary Malpractice Liability in the Care of Companion Animals,” which was published in the 10th Anniversary Issue of the journal Animal Law.  

That same year he won First Prize at Harvard’s inaugural National Animal Law Competitions, an event he now regularly judges. Chris also recently served on a National Academies of Sciences committee assessing the Dept. of Veterans Affairs’ use of dogs in biomedical research. Chris regularly testifies at legislative hearings on animal protection matters and has been quoted on animal legal issues in dozens of major media outlets. Green is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Illinois, where he created the college’s first Environmental Science degree. In 2022, Chris received the American Bar Association’s Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law. 

Caroline Griffin (Show Your Soft Side, USA), Fellow

A co-founder of the non-profit Show Your Soft Side, an anti-cruelty campaign that works with 250 professional athletes and celebrities throughout the United States. She was appointed Chair of the Mayor’s Anti-Animal Abuse Advisory Commission in Baltimore following the burning death of a dog.

She received the ASPCA Presidential Service Award for her work. Caroline serves on the Board of Directors of the Animal Welfare Institute, a non-profit based in Washington, D.C., that works to alleviate the suffering of animals caused by humans.

Ms Griffin graduated from Loyola University of Maryland and the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. She is a member of the Animal Law Commission of the Union Internationale des Avocats and the Animal Law Committee of the American Bar Association. She regularly testifies and writes articles on animal protection, and her research interests include deterring youth from engaging in animal cruelty.

Dr François Jaquet (Université de Strasbourg, France), Fellow

Lecturer in Ethics and the Deputy Director of the Ethics Master at the Université de Strasbourg (France), as well as a statutory member of the Archives Henri Poincaré—Philosophie et Recherches sur les Sciences et les Technologies. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the Université de Genève (Switzerland) for a dissertation on the “now-what question” for moral error theorists: what to do with our moral beliefs if they are all false? Since 2019, he has specialised in animal ethics, with a focus on the notion of speciesism.

His publications on this topic include:

• Is Speciesism Wrong by Definition? (Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 2019)
• A Debunking Argument Against Speciesism (Synthese, 2021)
• What’s Wrong with Speciesism” (Journal of Value Inquiry, 2022)
• Speciesism and Tribalism: Embarrassing Origins” (Philosophical Studies, 2022)
• Utilitarianism and the Moral Status of Animals: A Psychological Perspective (Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2022, with Manon Gouiran and Florian Cova)

He is currently writing a monograph (in French) on the ontology and ethics of speciesism, which will address such questions as: What exactly is speciesism? Does speciesism exist? Is speciesism morally acceptable?

Professor Shannon Johnstone (Meredith College, Raleigh, NC), Fellow

A tenured Professor at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC. She is also a PhD candidate in Human-Animal Studies at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, where she studies the role of images of animal suffering. Her photographic work deals with themes that reclaim what has been discarded and makes what is hidden visible. Johnstone has had solo shows in Chicago, Rochester, New Orleans, Raleigh, and Durham.

Her photography has been featured in group exhibitions throughout the USA and internationally in China, Germany, France, Taiwan, and Thailand. She has been a Photolucida Critical Mass Finalist six times (2017, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2010, 2009) and received three Creativity Grants from the Culture & Animals Foundation (2023, 2019, 2014). Her project “Landfill Dogs” was most notably on ABC World News with Diane Sawyer (2013) and CNN.com (2014). Her newest work, “Roadside Zoo”, won an Honorable Mention in the International Photography Awards (2021).

Dr Catharine E. Krebs (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, USA), Fellow

A medical research specialist at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a US-based organisation that promotes non-animal research and medical training. She received doctoral biomedical research training in human genetics from the University of California Los Angeles, focusing on psychiatric disease genetics and genomics.

Her work in animal research policy involves advocating for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to shift away from its reliance on animals toward more ethical, equitable, and effective human-specific research approaches. She also advocates for policy changes to promote a more diverse and inclusive research workforce.

Dr Krebs has authored numerous U.S. Congressional statements and public comments to the NIH and other federal agencies. She leads a collaborative international effort to characterise and address the bias toward animal-based methods within biomedical research. Dr Krebs has been an invited speaker at national and international meetings to provide expertise on research policy and advancing non-animal research approaches.

Professor Jodi Lazare (Dalhousie University, Canada), Fellow

 An Associate Professor at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, where she teaches Animal Law. She holds degrees in both civil law and common law from the University of Ottawa and a Master of Laws and Doctor of Civil Law from McGill University. Prior to joining Dalhousie, she worked as a law clerk to the Honourable Justice Michael J. Moldaver at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Her work in animal law focuses on the law’s treatment of companion animals upon family breakdown and the constitutional dimensions of laws aimed at suppressing animal rights activism in Canada. That work, which maintains that the ethics of animal rights activism and related practices are constitutionally protected activity, appears in the Alberta Law Review and the Osgoode Hall Law Review.

Her current work uncovers and examines the exceptional treatment of animal agriculture by law and policymakers through legislation that punishes animal rights activists and the disproportionate use of public funds and resources that directly and indirectly protect and promote animal agriculture. She has given expert testimony before provincial and federal legislative committees studying proposed legislation to protect animal agriculture. She has appeared in popular media, including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and the Chronicle Herald. 

Professor Philip Lymbery (Compassion in World Farming, U.K.), Fellow

Global Chief Executive of the international farmed animal welfare environmental organisation, Compassion in World Farming (CIWF). He is Visiting Professor at the University of Winchester in the U.K., a Leadership Fellow of St George’s House, Windsor Castle, and President of Eurogroup for Animals, the Brussels-based umbrella body of 80 leading European animal welfare societies. He was appointed U.N. ambassadorial ‘Champion’ for the 2021 Food Systems Summit in New York.

Lymbery is an animal advocate, naturalist, photographer, and author. He regularly writes and speaks internationally on animal ethics and the global effects of industrial agriculture (factory farming), including its impact on animal welfare, wildlife, soil and natural resources, biodiversity and climate change. His most recent books include Farmageddon:

• The True Cost of Cheap Meat (Bloomsbury, 2014)
• Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were (Bloomsbury, 2017)
• Sixty Harvests Left: How to Reach a Nature-friendly Future (Bloomsbury, 2022).

Bridget Nicholls (University of Windsor, Canada), Associate Fellow

A PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology & Criminology works with the Animal and Interpersonal Abuse Research Group at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Bridget holds a BA in labour studies and an MA in social justice and equity studies from Brock University, where she researched the tensions and limitations of animal cruelty officers and served as a humane jobs fellow.

She is in the final stage of her doctoral thesis, “Expanding the Carceral State?: An Examination of Animal Cruelty Prosecutions.” Bridget’s research has been supported by a Health Research Centre for the Study of Violence against Women Graduate Student Research Scholarship. Bridget is currently working on multiple co-authored publications in policy, domestic violence, and animal abuse, and her scholarship embraces a non-speciesist approach. A recent, relevant publication is Animal Protection: Organizational Constraints and Collaborative Opportunities. In addition to her academic work, Bridget volunteers in her community to change lives by raising future service dogs with a local organization.  

Professor Nathan Nobis (Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA), Fellow

A Professor of Philosophy at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA, USA. He is the author of the open-access introductory textbook Animals & Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights, co-author of Thinking Critically About Abortion, a co-author of Chimpanzee Rights, and the author or co-author of many other articles, chapters and other materials on ethics and animals and other philosophical issues, including “A Moral Argument for Veganism” and “The Harmful, Nontherapeutic Use of Animals in Research Is Morally Wrong.”  He also serves as Lead Editor of 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. He also creates educational videos for TikTok and YouTube. His general goal is to develop materials to help people more effectively engage in controversial ethical and philosophical issues.  

Professor Julie O’Connor (Graduate School of Education at Touro University, NY), Fellow

Has been a teacher and instructional supervisor for over twenty-five years in the New York City and New Jersey public school systems. She is an Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of Education at Touro University. She received Master’s degrees from Mercy College and The Bank Street College of Education and her PhD in Education from Northcentral University. Specialising in English language learning, Dr O’Connor obtained her PhD by studying how humane education and prosocial learning, including kindness to animals and improving student education.

She has presented on humane education at numerous conferences. Publications include the peer-reviewed study:

• Humane Education’s Effect on Middle School Student Motivation and Standards-Based Reading Assessment

And The non-fiction book United States of Friendship:

• Pen Pals of 9/11. Dr O’Connor is the Educational Director for the Animal Protection League of New Jersey

Julie is the founder and director of Caring Activists Against Fur. She is also the Vice President of The Humane Education Committee, Inc.

Melanie Jasmin Ort (Freie Universität and Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin), Associate Fellow

A biomedical researcher at Freie Universität and Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin. She received her Master’s in Biology from the University of Freiburg, Germany. She had the chance to work internationally at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Melaine was a visiting researcher at the Whitehead Institute of biomedical research at MIT and Harvard medical school in Boston, USA. She combines patient-centred studies with animal-free research to decipher the role of adaptive immunity in musculoskeletal regeneration.

She develops and applies advanced human 2D and 3D in vitro methods. For which the animal welfare officer of the State of Berlin awarded her the young scientist prize. She works closely with her orthopaedic and trauma surgery colleagues as part of her research. She actively promotes the use of patient tissues and cells in research to improve the translation of research results into clinical applications. Melanie also teaches non-animal methods and bioethics regarding mal experiments to younger PhDs students. She published in biomedical journals such as Advanced Science, Nature Communications and Frontiers of Immunology.

Martina Pluda (Humane Society International, Italy), Fellow

The first Director for Italy of the international animal protection organization Humane Society International has held this position since early 2020. She is a professional animal advocate with a media and legal background. Before her current, she worked for several years as Head of Programmes and Interim Country Director at FOUR PAWS in Vienna, Austria. For almost a decade, Martina has successfully run legislative, corporate, and awareness campaigns to improve the legal protection of farm, companion, and wild animals, influence company policies and practices, change the public perception around pressing animal protection issues, and encourage plant-based and cruelty-free options.

Martina strives to achieve meaningful, long-term structural and societal change by exposing hidden animal suffering and offering concrete solutions. Her work includes campaigning against cruel farming practices, fur fashion, dog fighting, animal testing, trophy hunting, and more. In recent years, her policy work has directly contributed to obtaining a ban on fur farming in Italy (2021/22) and submitting the first bill to prohibit the import of hunting trophies of CITES-listed species to Italy (2022/23).

Martina holds both a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and a Juris Doctor (JD) from the University of Salzburg and a Master’s in Animal Law from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Martina has been a freelance journalist for over fifteen years and is the author of Animal Law in the Third Reich (Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2019). She is also a frequent conference speaker, a regular op-ed contributor and a media commentator on animal protection issues, and her work has been featured in numerous news outlets, nationally and internationally.  

Dr Pandora Pound (Safer Medicines Trust, U.K.), Fellow

Research Director at Safer Medicines Trust, a charity that aims to improve the safety of medicines by facilitating a transition to human biology-based drug development and testing. She has a PhD in the Sociology of Medicine and over two decades of experience conducting research. In 2004, she transformed the debate on animal experiments as lead author of a landmark paper published in the British Medical Journal.

This led to a series of systematic reviews that exposed the scientific limitations of using animals in medical research. She has written numerous academic papers on the scientific drawbacks of using animals as models for humans, as well as commissioned articles, book chapters and blogs. In her forthcoming popular science book, Rat Trap (Matador, 2023), she comprehensively dismantles the case for animal research. She showcases the awe-inspiring technologies that will bypass animals and revolutionise medicine once we escape the stranglehold of the current paradigm.

Professor David B. Rosengard (Animal Legal Defense Fund, USA), Fellow

A managing attorney at the Animal Legal Defense Fund, where he engages with criminal justice stakeholders to protect the lives and improve the legal position of animals. In this context, he focuses on jurisprudence, translating theory into practice. Situating animals as individuals with legally cognisable interests separate from those of the state and defendants. Animal victims’ rights, by any other name.

David is an adjunct professor of animal law at Lewis & Clark Law School, from which he received his J.D. and Animal Law LLM. He regularly guest lectures for academic and practitioner audiences within the USA and internationally. In addition to authoring various amicus briefs and law review articles, David is a co-editor of Animal Law in A Nutshell (second edition). A contributing author to Animal Cruelty Investigations:

• A Collaborative Approach from Victim to Verdict
• Co-editor and contributing author of Animals As Crime Victims

Dr Edel Sanders (University of New York in Prague, Czech Republic), Fellow

Head of Research for the School of Psychology at the University of New York in Prague. She was Dean of Psychology at the same university for nearly nine years. She has taught many higher education courses with a passion to inspire meaningful learning. Her journey to explore the workings of the developing mind began at Columbia University, where she earned three degrees (B.A., summa cum laude, M.A. and EdM), followed by a PhD at the University of Cambridge.

Though Dr Sanders’ doctoral thesis explored cognitive development in human children, at the same time, at Cambridge, she also supported research at the Comparative Cognition lab, investigating individual traits and social learning in the natural environment of wild jackdaws. Her fascination with the mind extended beyond the human mind to include the minds of other species.

One area of focus in her recent publications regards concepts of otherness. She hopes to extend the discourse to dissolve mental biases and barriers regarding other species and human others. Her published works also regard post-traumatic stress and growth. Her future projects and research are motivated by the desire to foster compassion towards animals through humane education in urban areas and refugee settlements. Which also can encourage healing and growth in those who have experienced trauma.

Beyond this, Dr Sanders hopes to spark the idea that animals have intrinsic value and interests like our own through books and motivational talks, such as her recent TedTalk revealing how human hubris can blind us to the wonders of the inner worlds of non-human animals’ hearts and minds.

Erin Sharoni (Harvard Medical School, MA), Associate Fellow

“All these individuals are pioneering new work in animal ethics – helping to drive the cause of animals forward,” said Director of the Centre, Professor Andrew Linzey. The Centre extends its warmest congratulations to the successful individuals.

I hope you enjoyed that.

Talk soon

ABOUT THE OCAE

The Oxford Centre is an independent centre dedicated to exploring the ethical status of animals through academic research, teaching, and publication.

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