Living One

Born and raised in Chicago, Ray went west to California after graduating from high school. He got his first formal job working with Animals when he was hired by Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) founder, Pat Derby, and where he was caregiver with rescued Wolves, Bears, Leopards and Tigers. It was here, that Ray met an Elephant for the first time. Eventually, he moved to San Diego to obtain a BS degree in Counseling Psychology at San Diego State University (SDSU). During his tenure at SDSU, he was employed as a caregiver for both male and female Barbary Apes used in a study of Primate perceptual and analytical skills. After completing his bachelor’s degree, Ray applied for a local job caring for Gorillas and Orangutans at the Wild Animal Park. He was instead offered a position caring for a group of African Elephants and, later, Asian Elephants. This experience was to change his life forever. Profoundly affected by the violence and abuse that Elephants and other Animals suffer in the captive trade, Ray quit the Zoo and wrote his celebrated book: Keepers of The Ark: An Elephants’ View of Captivity (its second edition soon to be released). Ray’s unique experiences and expertise continue to be called upon for legal cases, lectures, interviews, and documentaries in aid of captive-held Elephants.

Zohara is an award-winning radio broadcaster, author, social justice, environmental and animal activist. She is a pioneer in holistic health care as founder of the Ruscombe Mansion Community Health Center in Baltimore, MD in 1985. Zoh has been called a visionary and futurist and is as well, a trans-species telepath who communicates with animals both wild and domestic. Zohara is well known for her participation in consciousness studies, the spiritual science of self-mastery as described in kabbalah, and is a broadcasting personality hosting numerous radio shows over the past 30 years continuing with her husband Dr. Bob, to host 21st Century Radio since its founding in 1986. Zoh is author of Kabbalistic Teachings of the Female Prophets, The Seven Holy Women of Ancient Israel, Inner Traditions International, June 2008. Sanctuary of the Divine Presence, Hebraic Rituals of Initiation and Illumination, Inner Traditions, 2012. The Future of Human Experience, Destiny Books 2013. White Spirit Animals, Prophets of Change, Bear & Co. 2017.

Susan is the executive Director of the American Tortoise Rescue (ATR) located in Malibu, California, USA. In 1990, with her husband, Marshall Thompson, Susan founded ATR to provide protection of all Turtles and Tortoises. ATR has a sanctuary and Turtle hospital where rescued, abandoned, those confiscated from law enforcement and/or injured Turtles and Tortoises can be safe. ATR has rescued or rehomed more than 4,000 animals to forever homes. A long-time Cat rescuer, Susan started rescuing and caring for Turtles because of the tremendous help needed worldwide. In 2000, Susan founded World Turtle Day® to shellebrate™ the international love of Turtles which now reaches more than 1 million people annually around the world. Susan is an expert in public relations after a 40-year career, a registered nurse (retired), LAPD Reserve Officer Specialist (retired), a voting member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and a former member of Malibu’s Community Emergency Response Team. In addition, Susan has four adult children and two rescue cats.

Kathleen Prasad is founder of Animal Reiki Source and president and co-founder of the non-profit Shelter Animal Reiki Association (SARA) which supports rescued animals and their caregivers with the Let Animals Lead® method of Animal Reiki in shelters and sanctuaries around the world. A Reiki practitioner and teacher for 25 years, Kathleen has pioneered the field of Reiki for Animals, creating the first and only code of ethics for the profession as well as the Let Animals Lead® method of Animal Reiki. The Let Animals Lead® approach is the only method of Animal Reiki that emphasizes meditation and Animal agency as ethical imperatives and the keys to successful healing sessions. Kathleen is also the author of several books on Reiki including The Let Animals Lead® Meditation Journal, Reiki for Dogs and Heart to Heart with Horses: An Equine Lover’s Guide to Reiki. Kathleen enjoys life with her husband, daughter, dog and horse in northern California.

Caroline is a leading expert in the field of Animal self-medication and founder of Applied Zoopharmacognosy and the Ingraham Method of Individualized Medicine (IMIM). She is an author, lecturer and teacher, with 38 plus years of experience in self-medication and aromatic medicine. Her work plays an important role in Animal welfare and encompasses an understanding of ethology, pharmacokinetics and pharmacology in combination with Animal self-medication. Caroline works with domestic Animals, as well as a wide range of other species including Kangaroos, Polar Bears, Brown Bears, Elephants, Tigers, Rhinoceroses, and nonhuman Primates. Her work has featured in many journals and magazines and is the author of numerous books on animal self-medication. Caroline has appeared on the BBC, ITV, BBC Radio 4, National Geographic TV and at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts as well as being in demand globally as a consultant and teacher, speaking regularly at international symposiums. She lectures to veterinarians, Animal nurses, Animal professionals, and university students around the world, as well as with individuals with companion Animals so that they are able to forge new lines of communication using self-medicative techniques, with the Animals in their care.

Elke Riesterer was born in southern Germany, and immigrated to the US in 1983. She is a Certified Massage Therapist and registered Jin Shin Do Practitioner with the broad experience of having worked with humans and Animals for over 30 years. She has volunteered as an all-species Body Therapist at the Oakland, California, USA, Zoo since 1997 and uses a combination of body-centered therapies including her most favored modality the Tellington Touch (TTouch™). In general, her work centers around the complex well-being issues of Elephants worldwide with an emphasis on helping heal symptoms of PTSD. Besides Elephants, Elke woks with Aldabra Tortoises, Monitor Lizards, Snakes and Giraffes, and Sea Life including Dolphins and Sea Lions. Elke has lectured and traveled extensively and in particular, visited Africa multiple times to provide healing touch for residents at the Elephant and Rhino Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya, Lilayi Elephant Nursery in Lusaka, Zambia, and Asian Elephants in Thailand and India.  In addition to many exotic species, Elke also enjoys working with Horses, Dogs and other home animals. Her work has appeared in numerous articles and radio and television programs. Elke is also the co-founder of World Elephant Alliance.

Deena Metzger is a writer, healer, and teacher whose work spans multiple genres including the novel, poetry, non-fiction, and plays. She is the author of many books, including the novels:  A Rain of Night Birds, concerning two climatologists, La Negra y Blanca (2012 PEN Oakland Pen Award for Literature), Feral, and The Other Hand. Her other books include The Burden of Light, Ruin and Beauty and Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing. Metzger co-edited Intimate Nature, The Bond Between Women and Animals, which pioneered the radical understanding that animals are highly intelligent and exhibit intent.  Her experiences with Elephants in the wild over twenty years is based on their spiritual agency and complex narrative communication. Some of that experience is chronicled in her forthcoming novel, La Vieja: A Journal of Fire.  She has developed The Literature of Restoration to, among other goals, advance Earth based writing, restore climate, and counter extinction.

In her White Work: Reparative Genealogy and Ecological Restoration, Mary Watkins discusses the relationships between reparative genealogy and racial and environmental reparations. She recounts some of her ancestral legacy and efforts of repair, including her great grandfather’s contribution to the decimation of the Mississippi woods and the Animals after the Civil War. Mary is Professor Emerita of Psychology, Pacifica Graduate Institute where she taught twenty-seven years and co-founded the Community, Liberation, Indigenous and Eco-Psychologies (CLIE) Program. Among other, numerous publications, Mary is the author of Mutual Accompaniment and the Creation of the Commons (2019) which describes a radical model of psychosocial and ecological accompaniment, and co-author of Up against the Wall which re-imagines national borders as sites of hospitality in an era of forced migration.

Gay Bradshaw is founder of The Kerulos Center for Nonviolence and The Tortoise and the Hare Sanctuary. She is the author of Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us about Humanity, Carnivore Minds: Who These Fearsome Animals Really Are, Talking with Bears: Conversations with Charlie Russell, co-author of The Evolved Nest: Nature’s Ways of Raising Children and Creating Communities (in press), and primary carer of the Sanctuary resident faculty.

Hadassah DeJack-Reynolds is co-founder and executive director of Tikkun Olam Farm Sanctuary (TOFS). Tikkun Olam, which means repair the world in Hebrew, is a forever home for abused, abandoned, neglected, and unwanted animals in Southern Oregon. She did her graduate work at Wilmington University and West Chester University, obtaining her degree in Holocaust and genocide studies with a focus on the psychology of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. Over 130 animals reside at TOFS where they are living their best life. Hadassah’s insights into human trauma and genocide inform her mission to create a healing community where all beings, human and non-human, are welcome.

Joseph Daniel Mitchell, MS is a full-blood citizen of the Creek Nation and a member of the Muskogee Indian Community. In addition to being a Senior Executive Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Joe has consulted with tribal governments and communities in the U.S. on Indian law and served as a tribal advocate for exercising treaty rights on federal lands, and implementing traditional practices for four decades. He has worked in environmental sciences and conservation on tribal and federal lands with more than 200 tribes, the USDA Forest Service, Washington, DC, and Bureau of Indian Affairs.

MaryBeth Timothy is a Native Oklahoman who is pursuing her dreams of creating art and working towards making it accessible to all walks of life. She is enrolled Cherokee Nation and works as a full-time artist/illustrator/business owner. MaryBeth is a self-taught multimedia artist, who overall features an array of subjects and themes in her art, although she leans towards her love of wildlife. Through her work, she shares her affinity for Oklahoma wild birds, animals and wildflowers. MaryBeth chooses to create what she feels, and loves to tell stories through her work. Her goal is to touch the ones that view it and cause a reaction, whether it be emotional or even a stirring curiosity. Both stimulate conversation about the piece and provide her the opportunity to tell its story. MaryBeth has traveled and participated in art shows and other venues around the country and in Europe.

Karen Davis is the founder and president of United Poultry Concerns including the Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos dedicated to the compassionate and respectful treatment of domesticated birds founded in 1990. She will discuss the suffering and abuses of chickens in farming operations, sacrificial “atonement” rituals, and farm supply businesses like Tractor Supply Company, and explain how we can restore birds lucky enough to be rescued to a sense of their true selves instead of the “lesser beings” to which abusers seek to reduce them. This project extrapolates to a larger vision and undertaking of Rescue. Karen is the author of numerous publications including the books: Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry; More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality; and The Holocaust and the Henmaid’s Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities.

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb speaks on Teshuvah: A Process of Healing Ethical Injury, Unjust Action and Moral Harm. Lynn is a Shomeret Shalom, a practitioner of the Torah of nonviolence engaged in multifaith, intergenerational, and multicultural organizing in solidarity with racial, Indigenous, gender justice and Palestinian liberation struggles. In addition to sitting on the Rabbinic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace and as board chair of Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, Rabbi Lynn is the author of several books, including Peace Primer II, She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of Renewed Judaism, World Beyond Borders Passover Haggadah, and Trail Guide to the Torah of Nonviolence.

Professor Castricano has published three books on the issues germane to critical animal studies: Animal Subjects: An Ethical Reader in a Posthuman World, (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008) and  Animal Subjects 2.0 (co-edited with L. Corman, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016), which builds on the previous work in the field of critical animal studies and posthumanism. Castricano also co-edited with Rasmus Simonsen to produce and contribute to Critical Perspectives on Veganism, (The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, 2016), a collection of essays that examine the ethics, politics and aesthetics of veganism in contemporary culture and thought.

Deena Metzger is a writer, healer, and teacher whose work spans multiple genres including the novel, poetry, non-fiction, and plays. She is the author of many books, including the novels:  A Rain of Night Birds, concerning two climatologists, La Negra y Blanca (2012 PEN Oakland Pen Award for Literature), Feral, and The Other Hand. Her other books include The Burden of Light, Ruin and Beauty and Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing. Metzger co-edited Intimate Nature, The Bond Between Women and Animals, which pioneered the radical understanding that animals are highly intelligent and exhibit intent.  Her experiences with Elephants in the wild over twenty years is based on their spiritual agency and complex narrative communication. Some of that experience is chronicled in her forthcoming novel, La Vieja: A Journal of Fire.  She has developed The Literature of Restoration to, among other goals, advance Earth based writing, restore climate, and counter extinction.

Praise for La Vieja

A genre-bending transpersonal journey of interbeing that transcends thresholds and beckons us into wild knowing. The reader’s heartmind is folded into worlds familiar and feral. Here we access the power, potency and purity of divine intelligence. Thus we remember—and may restore—our true nature and all our relations.  —Anna Breytenbach, South African interspecies communicator and conservationist.

A breath-taking, breath-making miracle of a book. —Ariel Dorfman, author of Death and the Maiden, and the novels Cautivos and The Compensation Bureau.

La Vieja is a listening to the world on fire, a contemplation. It spreads through time and space by weaving together story, the experiences of a long and giving life, keen global observations, and the lives of all beings, through a deeply-caring heart. —Stan Rushworth, author of Diaspora’s Children; Going to Water: The Journal of Beginning Rain.

Hadassah DeJack-Reynolds is co-founder and executive director of Tikkun Olam Farm Sanctuary (TOFS.) Tikkun Olam, which means repair the world in Hebrew, is a forever home for abused, abandoned, neglected, and unwanted animals in Southern Oregon. She did her graduate work at Wilmington University and West Chester University, obtaining her degree in Holocaust and genocide studies with a focus on the psychology of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. Over 130 animals reside at TOFS where they are living their best life. Hadassah’s insights into human trauma and genocide inform her mission to create a healing community where all beings, human and non-human, are welcome.

Her Imprint on My Palm Lingers (2020) 15″ x 11″ ash on paper

Linnea Ryshke is a visual artist and writer who centers her practice on restoring the value of nonhuman animals as kindred beings worthy of our adoration and respect. She creates paintings, drawings, objects and poetry that honor the enigmatic subjectivity of nonhuman animals and encourage the audience to practice empathetic imagination. With her M.F.A. in Visual Art from Washington University in St. Louis, she has been exhibited nationally and published her first book, Kindling, with Lantern Publishing and Media in September 2021. Kindling is a collection of poetry, photography and painting created from her experience working at a small-family meat farm in the summer of 2019. Kindling situates art and poetry as able to touch the soft, empathetic core of each of us, which must surface in order to do the necessary work of regarding more-than-human creatures as “kin not kindling.”  She currently lives and works as an educator in St. Louis, MO.

Erin Johnson is a trauma therapist and former Kerulos Animal Being intern under the guidance of Dr. Gay Bradshaw. She came to Kerulos after a decade of searching for ways of being with animals that didn’t feel exploitative. In learning about trans-species psychology and the wealth of evidence that supports it, she was inspired to pursue a new career path. Specifically, Erin was galvanized by an article by Dr. Bradshaw and Vera Muller-Paisner, LCSW demonstrating that it was possible to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Animals using a human treatment protocol called EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing). This led her to pursue a Master’s Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling so that she would be eligible to learn EMDR. She has since graduated and is now a trained EMDR therapist, building the expertise in traumatology that she will need to ethically and responsibly heal the symptoms and repercussions of trauma across species. Through the internship, graduate program, and continued education, she is knitting together her passions for Human and Animal wellness.

Lierre Keith has been a radical feminist for 40 years. She is the author of seven books, including The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability, which has been called “the most important ecological book of this generation.”  She is coauthor, with Derrick Jensen and Max Wilbert, of Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It. She lives in northern California with giant trees and giant dogs. She’s also been arrested six times for acts of political resistance.

Lis McLoughlin is founder of NatureCulture whose mission is to bring people in closer right relationship with the rest of Nature. As part of NatureCulture, Lis also directs the Writing the Land project. Lis holds a BS in Civil Engineering, an MEd in Education, and a PhD in Science and Technology Studies.  Her published works include editing the anthology Honoring Nature: An Anthology of Authors and Artists Festival Writers and the forthcoming Writing the Land: Northeast; as well as authoring: academic articles in Community Archaeology and Heritage, Religions, Journal of Engineering Education, and Engineering Studies; poems in Stonewalls II, and Tributaries; personal essays in The Ecological Citizen, and Community Archaeology and Heritage, a stage performance in Confabulations, a storytelling event; book chapters in Re-Enchanting the Academy and Engineering Social Justice: In the University and Beyond; and editing and usually also writing the Science Page of the weekly newspaper the Montague Reporter. She lives off-grid in Northfield, Massachusetts and part-time in Montréal, Québec.

On July 11 and September 6, 2021, Living One hosted Derrick Jensen. He is hailed as the philosopher poet of the environmental movement.He is the author of twenty-seven books, including The Myth of Human Supremacy, Bright Green Lies, and A Language Older Than Words. He holds a degree in creative writing from Eastern Washington University, a degree in mineral engineering physics from the Colorado School of Mines, and has taught at Eastern Washington University and Pelican Bay State Prison. He has packed university auditoriums, conferences, and bookstores across the nation, stirring them with revolutionary spirit.

Sara Granovetter, PhD is an ecopsychologist and educator. She completed her dissertation in 2021, entitled, The Asymmetrical Mirror: Nonhuman Subject as Shadow and Self, at California Institute of Integral Studies in an ecopsychology concentration. A former intern at Kerulos, Sara holds a Masters in counseling psychology and BA in Philosophy from Harvard University. For the past ten years, Sara has worked as a somatic depth psychotherapist in private practice and as director of Fiddleheads, a nature-based program for children with social-emotional learning differences. Recently, Sara has shifted her attention towards ecopsychology and animal advocacy, serving as visiting scholar at the Animals & Society Institute summer institute in 2017, and in 2019 presenting the workshop, The Rupture Within: Healing the Trans-Species Psyche, at the Reciprocal Healing Conference, Sedona, Arizona. Sara’s publications and research explore both collective trauma and unconscious defenses embedded in our society, defenses designed to protect us from feeling deep grief about what we do to animals and ourselves.

Vaughan Wilkins, PhD, is an ecopsychologist, applied animal behaviorist, and cultural traumatologist. A skilled and inventive educator, Wilkins has spent the last decade working with human and nonhuman animals, families, schools and organizations to incorporate trauma responsive learning. He currently serves as department chair at Summit Public Schools and also works directly with parents, educators and trauma specialists looking to build the resiliency of young people during uncertain times. Wilkins holds an MA degree in the psychology of animal behavior from Hunter College and a PhD in psychology from The California Institute of Integral Studies.

Geri Vistein is a Conservation Biologist whose focus is carnivores and their vital role in maintaining the biodiversity of our planet. Her work centers on educating the Maine community about carnivores, their ecology, their complex cultures and history, and how we can coexist with them. She achieves this by working closely with farmers who wish to learn coexisting skills, by creating outreach projects with artists, musicians, and puppeteers, experiential programs for children, giving support to educators of children, and by presenting various programs on carnivores and us to diverse audiences across the state of Maine.

She is the Founder of Coyote Center for Carnivore Ecology and Coexistence whose mission is to share with community members the science we know of our returning carnivores and the skills to live well with them.   Listen to Coyotes below, and visit her two educational websites: www.CoyoteLivesinMaine.org and www.FarmingwithCarnivoresNetwork.com.

Linda Fisher is an artist and tribal member of the Ojibwe Nation belonging to the Catfish clan. Her passion for animals began when she was barely old enough to walk. Her animal intuitive abilities became apparent shortly thereafter. What Linda came to learn and understand about the true feelings of animals, prompted her to be a lifelong vegan and animal advocate.

“My animal intuitive work is different from most other animal communicators. Rather than an anthropomorphic vision of animals’ feelings and thoughts, I sense their primal essence. Animals don’t see or feel the world as we do. They operate on a much higher frequency and are far more intellectually and energetically connected to all things.

“I often sense what animals are feeling, both emotionally and physically. However, it’s not an anthropomorphic-like connection that some animal communicators claim, rather for me, perhaps closer to what some scientists explain as a biological radio when explaining the way animals communicate with each other, and to me.”

​Linda’s second passion since childhood is painting visionary images that convey messages of compassion for all species, as well as respect for Mother Earth and the Indigenous. Although Linda attended art school, she considers herself to be self-taught and has her paintings hanging worldwide.

In 1989, Linda co-founded a non-profit organization to teach school children humane education. She also founded The Will of Wings Foundation to provide adult classes about the exotic bird crisis and the suffering and mortality that befalls a massive percentage of parrots who fall victim to the pet trade. Linda also serves as an advisory board member for Sea Shepherd Conservation society.

Linda practices meditation daily and when not in her art studio with her rescued dog and rescued parrots, she enjoys being outdoors with nature, and helping people better understand animals.

Creative by Nature: Does Art Offer an Alternative to Science for Understanding Nature?

Historically, science has been the de facto expert on the nature of Nature. But as “the” authority on Animals and the rest of Earth’s family, other relational ways of understanding Nature have become marginalized. In this special Living One webinar event, Creative by Nature explores the role that the Arts play in our understanding of Nature. Artists Maggie Campbell, Karen Silton, and Deke Weaver sketch out their visions of how creativity can inform—and transform—how we understand the world around us. Tune into the lively discussion covering everything from the co-creative power of artistic expression to the relationship between arts, science, and a holistic sense of self.

Olivia Crossman is an Environmental Studies junior at Loyola University Chicago in the School of Environmental Sustainability. She is also minoring in Spanish and is a member of the Interdisciplinary Honors Program. Over the past two years, she has been involved with the school’s Student Environmental Alliance, working on the “Plastic Free Initiative” to promote a zero-waste lifestyle on campus.

As a senior at Oak Park and River Forest High School Olivia took Investigative Research Design Innovation (IRDI). Students spent the year designing and carrying out an original research project that aimed to fill a “gap” in the existing literature. Olivia’s focus was the Effect of Trauma on Elephant Reproduction Rate. At the end of the year, students engaged in competitions with their research in the Chicago area.

In summer 2020 Olivia completed the Animal Being Internship with Kerulos and Dr. Gay Bradshaw. In this work she utilized a cross-species lens to explore animal cognition, emotions, and experience. She also studied primary and secondary literature that detailed the series of scientific discoveries and principles that prompted a species-common approach to the study of human and animal minds and emotions. Additionally, Olivia explored the main philosophical, political, social, ethical, and psychological issues that have emerged with trans-species psychology.

Jim was born in Los Angeles, California on January 15, 1948. He grew up in Tallahassee, Florida and attended Brandeis University.  Like many young people of his generation, Jim attended a few civil rights demonstrations and a few of the demonstrations against the War in Vietnam. He attended Boston College Law School and practiced law in Boston, Massachusetts until 1988 when he moved to Los Angeles with his wife and children. Since then, he has practiced law in Los Angeles.

Jim met his wife Deborah Elliott in college in 1966 – and they have been partners ever since, growing together into vegans and supporters of animal rights. In 1997, Jim and Deborah realized that selected feature films could assist in education.  Together they founded TeachWithMovies.org which quickly became one of the most frequently used web sites on the Internet, showing teachers and parents how to use film in the service of education.  Currently, the site contains curriculum materials for more than 450 films covering most subjects taught in K-12. The web site is still active today receiving more than a million visits a year.

In 2018, Jim and Deborah produced a 22-minute documentary, Cesar Chavez – Respect for All, which shows that Chavez was more than just a union organizer – he was a moral pioneer who relentlessly applied the principal of respect to all people and all sentient beings.  Chavez was a vegan.

Gwenna Hunter is founder of VegansOfLA and Vegans for Black Lives Matter. She is also the Vegan Food Aid Coordinator at Vegan Outreach for the greater Los Angeles area where her team provides fresh produce and hot plant-based meals as a form of support to local POC lead organizations. Gwenna enjoys helping facilitate the food empowerment of local communities in following a vegan lifestyle. She became vegetarian in 2008, and in 2016 went vegan after watching the video, Dairy is Scary, and having a supernatural experience with a cow. Gwenna is also a co-author of the book, Voices for Animal Liberation: Inspirational Accounts by Animal Rights Activists. In 2021 Gwenna will be introducing a podcast, Vegans for Black Lives Matter.

Steven M. Wise is an American legal scholar who specializes in animal protection issues, primatology, and animal intelligence. He is founder and president of the Non-human Rights Projects (NhRP). Steven has practiced animal protection law for 30 years throughout the US and is the author of four books: Rattling the Cage – Toward Legal Rights for Animals; Drawing the Line – Science and the Case for Animal Rights; Though the Heavens May Fall – The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery; and An American Trilogy – Death, Slavery, and Dominion Along the Banks of the Cape Fear River. He holds a J.D. from Boston University Law School and a B.S. in Chemistry from the College of William and Mary. Steven also teaches animal rights law at Harvard Law School, Vermont Law School, John Marshall Law School, Lewis & Clark Law School, and Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine.

Karen Davis, PhD, is founder and president of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. Founded in 1990, United Poultry Concerns is worldwide the leading organization for domestic fowl rights. UPC addresses the treatment of domestic fowl in food production, science, education, entertainment, and human companionship situations. In addition to her great depth of knowledge and experience with Birds, Karen has a PhD in English from the University of Maryland-College Park where she taught for twelve years in the English Department. Karen has published widely in academic, formal journals, and public media. She founded International Respect for Chickens Day in 2005 to celebrate chickens throughout the world and protest their suffering and abuse.

Karen is the author of numerous books, including A Home for Henny; Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey: A Poultryless ‘Poultry’ Potpourri; Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry; More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality; The Holocaust and the Henmaid’s Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities; and most recently,  For the Birds: From Exploitation to Liberation – Essays on Chickens, Turkeys, and Other Domesticated Fowl.

Author and journalist Alan Weisman has worked in nearly 60 countries and on all seven continents. His 2013 book, Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Paris Book Festival Prize, the Population Institute’s Global Media Award, and was a finalist for the Books for a Better Life Award and the Orion Book Award. The World Without Us, an international bestseller now in 35 languages, was named Best Nonfiction Book of 2007 by Time Magazine and Entertainment Weekly, and one of The 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years by Slate in 2019. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Rachel Carson Prize, the Orion Book Award, and winner of the National Library of China’s Wenjin Book Prize. His previous books include An Echo In My Blood; Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World; and La Frontera: The United States Border With Mexico.  His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, Mother Jones, Discover, Orion, VICE, Pacific Standard, Wilson Quarterly, Lapham’s Quarterly, Condé Nast Traveler, Boston Globe Magazine, on NPR, and in Best American Science Writing and Best Buddhist Writing (even though he isn’t one).

Weisman has taught journalism and writing at Prescott College, Williams College, the Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá), and from 2003-2013 was the Laureate Professor of Journalism at the University of Arizona. A senior documentary producer for Homelands Productions, he is currently under contract to Dutton/Penguin Random House for his next book, Hope Dies Last, about humanity’s realistic hopes in the challenging decades to come, and about visionary people around the world who are determined to try to get us through, despite daunting odds.  He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, sculptor Beckie Kravetz.

Stevan Harnad is Professor of Psychology at Université du Québec à Montréal, Adjunct Professor of Cognitive Science at McGill University, and Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton. Harnad was born in Budapest, Hungary. He did his undergraduate work at McGill University and his graduate work at Princeton University’s Department of Psychology. He completed his Master of Arts degree in Psychology from McGill University in 1969, his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Princeton University in 1992. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by University of Liège in 2013. In 1978, Harnad was the founder of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, of which he remained editor-in-chief until 2002. In addition, he founded Psycoloquy (an early electronic journal sponsored by the American Psychological Association), CogPrints (an electronic eprint archive in the cognitive sciences hosted by the University of Southampton), and the American Scientist Open Access Forum (since 1998; now the Global Open Access List, GOAL). Harnad is an active promoter of open access, EPrints. He is Editor-in-Chief of the refereed journal Animal Sentience launched in 2015 by the Institute of Science and Policy of The Humane Society of the United States. A vegan, Harnad is  active in animal welfare animal rights and animal law. Harnad is the author of a 2011 open letter signed by over 60 external members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences addressed to the Academy’s President, József Pálinkás, concerning the press and police harassment campaign against Hungarian philosophers who were critics of the current Hungarian ruling party, Fidesz, and its prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Elected external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2001, Harnad resigned in protest, 8 October 2016.

Deborah Elliot is a connector and writer linking the worlds of human and non-human rights, art and education, and the change-makers of yesterday and today via film and film production. She is former high school teacher and life-long dancer. In 1998, Deborah and her husband, James Friedan started TeachWithMovies.org (TWM). By 2002, tens of thousands of teachers and parents were logging on to TeachWithMovies.org each month. In 2018, TWM released its first film made specifically for teachers, Cesar Chavez: Respect for All.  A companion Learning Guide helps teachers develop lessons showing that Mr. Chavez was not only a leader of farm workers, but he was also an ethical pioneer who applied the principal of respect to all beings. Deborah is also on the Board of Directors of  Our Planet Theirs Too and a regular speaker at Animal Rights Conferences around the world. Deborah philosophy is reflected here: “Our culture’s insistence on the false disconnect between human and nonhuman animals causes incalculable suffering and denies us all the joy of multifaceted connections.  Our transformative task is to restore what has been broken.”

Molly Flanagan is a student and teacher of language. Professionally for the past two decades, she’s worked in educational consulting and taught English to people from around the world. Outside the classroom, she’s enthralled by connections with other species and seeks to elevate the voices of individuals who are often unheard. A former Kerulos intern, Molly has been involved in sanctuary and rescue work, activism in various animal rights circles, and helped to galvanize a strong community of Pigeon allies in the SF Bay Area. Finding her unique contribution to the movement is a lifelong journey and she is very much still finding her way, but grateful to be in good company!

Ecologist and author Carl Safina explores how humans are changing the living world, and what those changes mean for wild places and for human and other beings. Carl sees that the durability of human dignity and survival of the natural world will depend on each other; we cannot preserve the wild unless we preserve human dignity, and we cannot conserve human dignity while continuing to degrade nature. His lyrical non-fiction writing fuses scientific understanding, emotional connection, and a moral call to action. His writing has won the MacArthur “genius” prize; Pew and Guggenheim Fellowships; book awards from Lannan, Orion, and the National Academies; and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. Safina hosted the 10-part PBS series, Saving the Ocean With Carl Safina. He holds the Endowed Chair for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University and is founder of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He lives on Long Island, New York with his wife Patricia and their dogs and feathered friends. Carl’s most recent book is Becoming Wild; How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace.

Nigel Osborne is Executive Director of Egg-Truth, and has years of experience related to animal rights and on-line advocacy. He personally supports a variety of organizations from farm sanctuaries, animal rescue organizations and animal rights groups. Nigel’s extensive background in the publishing, outdoor advertising, printing and web design industries over the last 25 years provides him with a strong, creative acumen and business management experience. Through Egg-Truth.com and its social media channels, Nigel seeks to increase awareness among the public about global egg production and expose the conditions for the billions of hens condemned to laying every year.

For over 35 years, Corey Cohen has helped people and Dogs grow synergistic friendships based on mutual respect, trust and harmony using a mindfulness based approach. The heart of his philosophy is connecting with Dogs on an equal level—as friends—and not as owner and “pet.” He began his career with Dogs that had been deemed hopeless by others, with extreme aggression, anxiety, and trauma, and worked with several high profile cases in New York and New Jersey.  Corey was the training director for the Big Apple Schutzhund Club, Behavior Director for the Vermont Center of Animal Behavior, Director of NEK Search & Rescue in Vermont and New Hampshire, and Director of Behavior and Outreach for the five branches of the Pennsylvania SPCA. In addition to working with Dogs, Corey has been a student of Mindfulness since the late 1970’s, beginning with his first Vipassana retreat and finally studying at Karme Choling in Vermont and with a Taoist Priest for seven years.  He is  currently a guest lecturer at the University Of Scranton world religion curriculum.

Zoe Weil (pronounced Zoh Wile) is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE). At IHE Zoe created the first graduate programs in comprehensive Humane Education linking human rights, environmental preservation and animal protection offered online through an affiliation with Antioch University. Zoe is a frequent keynote speaker at education and other conferences and has given six TEDx talks, including her acclaimed, “The World Becomes What You Teach.” She is the author of seven books including The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries; Nautilus silver medal winner Most Good, Least Harm, Moonbeam gold medal winner Claude and Medea, and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times. Zoe holds master’s degrees from Harvard Divinity School and the University of Pennsylvania and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Valparaiso University.

Susan is a depth-based eco- and community psychologist living in the Northwest. Her research has focused on arts-based methodologies for conservation communication and human-wildlife coexistence. She has over 20 years of experience working in communications in the organic food movement and has also worked as a nature guide, art therapy assistant, and program evaluator for arts programs. She currently serves as vice president of communications and marketing for the Seattle-based conservation nonprofit Forterra.

Krista Valerie Hiddema is an Animal rights activist. She holds a Master’s degree in Work, Organization, and Leadership where her thesis focused on the human costs of the North American pork industry. Currently, Krista is pursuing a doctorate on the need to utilize ecofeminist principles in matters of board governance within the Animals rights movement, with an emphasis on economic health, ecological heath, and social health. Throughout her career, Krista led more than dozen undercover investigations into factory farms and slaughterhouses across Canada, helped produce four investigatory news shows with W5, and has presented to the federal government on Animal transportation. She is the President of Happily Ever After Esther Farm Sanctuary, home of Esther the Wonder Pig and serves as a strategic advisor to Egg Truth, One Protest, and the Rancher Advocacy Program and as a reviewer for the Journal of Critical Animal Studies. Krista is also the Executive Director of For the Greater Good where she consults with Animal rights organizations across world on matters of governance and organizational development and intersectional justice.

Margo DeMello received her degree in Cultural Anthropology from U.C. Davis in 1995, and currently teaches at Canisius College in the Anthrozoology Masters program. She is the outgoing Program Director for Human-Animal Studies at Animals & Society Institute, and the past President of House Rabbit Society. She also volunteers for Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary. Her books include Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community (Duke University Press 2000), Stories Rabbits Tell: A Natural and Cultural History of a Misunderstood Creature (with Susan Davis, Lantern 2003), Low-Carb Vegetarian (Book Publishing Co. 2004), Why Animals Matter: The Case for Animal Protection (with Erin Williams, Prometheus 2007), The Encyclopedia of Body Adornment (Greenwood 2007), Feet and Footwear (ABC-CLIO 2009), Teaching the Animal: Human-Animal Studies Across the Disciplines (Lantern 2010), Faces Around the World (ABC-CLIO 2012), Animals and Society: An Introduction to Human-Animal Studies (Columbia University Press 2012), Speaking for Animals: Animal Autobiographical Writing (Routledge 2012), Inked (ABC-CLIO 2014), Body Studies: An Introduction (Routledge 2014), and Mourning Animals: Rituals and Practices Surrounding Animal Death (Michigan State 2016).

lauren Ornelas is the founder of Food Empowerment Project (FEP) and serves as its executive director.  She has been active in the animal rights movement for more than 30 years. lauren is the former executive director of Viva!USA, a national nonprofit vegan advocacy organization that Viva!UK asked her to start in 1999.

While lauren was the director of Viva!USA, she investigated factory farms and ran consumer campaigns. In cooperation with activists across the country, she persuaded Trader Joe’s to stop selling all duck meat and achieved corporate changes within Whole Foods Market, Pier 1 Imports, and others, and she helped halt the construction of an industrial dairy operation in California.

lauren was also the spark that convinced the founder of Whole Foods Market to become vegan. In addition, she served as campaign director with the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition for six years. Watch lauren’s TEDx talk, The Power of Our Food Choices and learn more about F.E.P.’s work at foodispower.org, veganmexicanfood.com and veganfilipinofood.com.