I am currently Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Philosophy, and Law, Director of the Animal Studies M.A. Program, Director of the Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program, Co-Director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program, and Deputy Director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection at New York University. I am also a faculty fellow at the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy & Land Use Law at the NYU School of Law and an advisory committee member at the Animals in Context series at NYU Press.
I was previously Research Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director of the Parr Center for Ethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and before that I held postdoctoral fellowships in Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health and Animal Studies and Environmental Studies at New York University. I earned my Ph.D. in Philosophy at New York University in 2011.
My research focuses on moral philosophy, legal philosophy, and philosophy of mind; animal minds, ethics, and policy; AI minds, ethics, and policy; global health and climate ethics and policy; and global priorities research. My book The Moral Circle will be out next year, and my books Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves, Chimpanzee Rights, and Food, Animals, and the Environment are out now.
My teaching focuses on bioethics, animal and environmental ethics, and animal and environmental law. Recent classes include Animal Minds; Animals and Climate Change; Animals and Public Health; Ethics and the Anthropocene; Effective Animal Advocacy; Ethics and Animals; Ethics and the Environment; Food, Animals, and the Environment; Moral Status; Bioethics; Population Ethics; and Philosophy of Law.
I also do a lot of work with related organizations. For example, I was previously a board member at Animal Charity Evaluators, which works to find and promote the most effective ways to help animals, and I am currently a board member at Minding Animals International, which works to further the development of animal studies and animal protection; an advisory board member at the Insect Welfare Research Society, which works to connect the global community of insect welfare researchers and stakeholders; a senior research affiliate at the Legal Priorities Project, which conducts legal research on the world’s most pressing problems; and a mentor at Sentient Media, which works to create transparency around the role of animals in our lives.
