NYU Wild Animal Welfare Program

Staff

Becca Franks

Co-Director


Becca Franks is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at NYU. She was previously a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow with the Animal Welfare Program at UBC, where she was awarded the Killam Research Prize. Her research and teaching lie at the intersection of environmental and animal protection, specializing in animal behavior, aquatic animal welfare, quantitative methods, and human-animal relationships.  In addition to publishing scholarly articles, commentaries, and book chapters, she co-edited a special issue for the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science and is an Associate Editor for the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.


✉️ beccafranks@nyu.edu

Jeff Sebo

Co-Director


Jeff Sebo is 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, and Co-Director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program at NYU. Jeff is author of Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves (2022) and co-author of Chimpanzee Rights (2018) and Food, Animals, and the Environment (2018). He is also an executive committee member at the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, a board member at Minding Animals International, a senior research fellow at the Legal Priorities Project, and a mentor at Sentient Media.


✉️ jeffsebo@nyu.edu

Sofia Fogel

Coordinator

In addition to serving as Program Coordinator at the Wild Animal Welfare Program, Sofia is Fellowship Director at the Reducetarian Foundation and Program Coordinator at the NYU Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program. She is also an advisor to the board of the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative. Previously, Sofia was the managing director at Animal Charity Evaluators, project manager at Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative, and copy editor for The 80,000 Hours Podcast. Sofia is a graduate of the NYU Environmental Studies program, where she served as a research assistant. She also pursued an MPA at Baruch College Marxe School of Public and International Affairs.


✉️ sofia.fogel@nyu.edu

Toni sims

Researcher

Toni has worked as a researcher, writer, and editor for a variety of academic and nonprofit institutions. In addition to her work with the NYU Wild Animal Welfare Program and the NYU Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program, she conducts independent and contract research. Previously, she worked as an editor at the Center for AI Safety, a research fellow at Longview Philanthropy, and the managing editor of Social Theory and Practice. She also worked as the director of research for Animal Charity Evaluators, where she led charity evaluations and managed two grant programs. Toni studied philosophy at NYU and received an MA in philosophy from Georgia State University.

✉️ tsa231@nyu.edu

Affiliates

Arthur caplan

Arthur Caplan is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU School of Medicine in New York City. He is the author or editor of 35 books and over 850 papers in peer-reviewed journals. His most recent books are Vaccination Ethics and Policy with Jason Schwartz and Getting to Good: Research Integrity in Biomedicine with Barbara Redman. He has served on a number of national and international committees, including as chair of the Advisory Committee to the UN on Human Cloning, and has received a number of awards and 7 honorary degrees from colleges and medical schools.


✉️ arthur.caplan@nyulangone.org

matthew hayek

Matthew Hayek is an Assistant Professor at New York University in the Department of Environmental Studies and affiliated faculty with the NYU Center for Data Science. His research quantifies the impacts of food production on climate change and ecological processes using empirical modeling and geospatial data. His more recent research into climate emissions from agriculture and ecosystem conservation also highlights linkages with animal welfare and agency. As climate change research and policies begin to grapple with animal welfare more broadly, Dr. Hayek aims to create more comprehensive analytical frameworks for bringing wild animals' capacities and considerations into climate mitigation strategies.


✉️ matthew.hayek@nyu.edu

jennifer jacquet

Jennifer Jacquet is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of XE: Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement at NYU. She is also deputy director of NYU's Center for Environmental and Animal Protection. Her research focuses on animals and the environment, agnotology, and attribution and responsibility in the Anthropocene. She is the author of The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World (2022) and Is Shame Necessary? (2015). She is also the recipient of a 2015 Alfred P. Sloan research fellowship and a 2016 Pew fellowship in marine conservation.


✉️ jj84@nyu.edu

dale jamieson

Dale Jamieson is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies and Director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection at NYU. He has published more than 100 articles and chapters, including Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle to Stop Climate Change Failed—and What It Means For Our Future (2014), Ethics and the Environment: An Introduction (2008), and Morality's Progress: Essays on Humans, Other Animals, and the Rest of Nature (2002). He is also on the boards of several journals and has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and more.


✉️ dale.jamieson@nyu.edu

colin jerolmack

Colin Jerolmack is Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at NYU. He is also the current Chair of Environmental Studies there. His research examines how relationships with animals and nature shape social life in the city, among other topics. He is author of Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town (2021) and The Global Pigeon (2013). He is also author of many articles on sociology, animals, and the environment, and he is editor of the Animals in Context series for NYU Press and an executive committee member of the NYU Center for Environmental and Animal Protection.


✉️ jerolmack@nyu.edu

lori marino

Lori Marino is a neuroscientist and adjunct professor of Animal Studies at NYU. She is the

founder and President of the Whale Sanctuary Project and Executive Director of The Kimmela

Center for Scholarship-based Animal Advocacy. Lori’s scientific work focuses on the evolution of the brain and intelligence in dolphins and whales (as well as primates and farmed animals), and on the effects of captivity on wildlife. She has published over 140 peer-reviewed scientific papers, book chapters, and magazine articles in these areas. Lori also works at the intersection of science and animal law and policy and is the co-director (with Professor Kathy Hessler) of the

Animal Law and Science Project at George Washington University. She was also a senior

lecturer in neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory University for almost twenty years.


✉️ lam9274@nyu.edu

sonali mcdermid

Sonali McDermid is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at NYU. Her research explores the role of landscapes in our regional and global climate systems, with special focus on agriculture as both a driver of global environmental change and vulnerable to it. Sonali uses a variety of tools in her research, including process-based climate models, crop models, and a range of observational and remote-sensing datasets. She is also a research affiliate at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), where she helps develop the land surface component of the NASA GISS ModelE climate model for improved agricultural representation. 


✉️ sps246@nyu.edu

Christine webb

Christine Webb is a lecturer and post-doctoral researcher in Harvard University's Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. A broadly trained primatologist with expertise in social behavior, motivation, and emotion, her recent work centers on consolation and empathy in our close primate cousins across several sanctuary and wild settings. Her research and teaching also engages critically with questions in animal and environmental ethics, particularly in deconstructing anthropocentric biases that affect the way we approach primatology, science, and our relationship with the natural world more broadly.


✉️ christinewebb@fas.harvard.edu

katrina wyman

Katrina Wyman is the Wilf Family Professor of Property Law at NYU School of Law, where she teaches and researches in the areas of Property, Urban Environmental Law, and Natural Resources Law, among other subjects. Wyman is co-faculty director of NYU Law’s Frank J. Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy and Land Use Law, and faculty director of the Law School’s LLM program in Environmental and Energy Law. Wyman also runs an annual reading group on animal law, which addresses topics like animal farming, nonhuman personhood, and animal welfare regulations. Wyman was awarded the Podell Distinguished Teaching Award in 2020. She has a BA, MA, and LLB from the University of Toronto, and an LLM from Yale Law School.


✉️ katrina.wyman@nyu.edu