Join us at NYU on Friday, February 20th, 2015. This one-day conference is free and open to the public and seeks to examine from both theoretical and applied perspectives what digital technologies mean to animal protection in the 21st century. Free registration.
This event is hosted by the Animal Studies Initiative, part of the Department of Environmental Studies at NYU. Co-sponsors include DarwinApps, The Dodo, and the Digital Humanities in NYU's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.


Tim Zimmermann

Tim Zimmermann Associate Producer and Co-Writer, Blackfish

In addition to his work on Blackfish and its campaign, Zimmermann is also a Correspondent for Outside magazine and former Senior Editor and Diplomatic Correspondent for US News & World Report.


Alexandra Horowitz

Alexandra Horowitz Adjunct Associate Professor, Psychology, Barnard College

Horowitz's research is in animal cognition. She is currently testing the olfactory acuity of the domestic dog, through experiments in natural settings, and examining dog-human dyadic play behavior. She is author of Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know (2009).


Izzie Lerer

Izzie Lerer Founder and Editor-at-Large, The Dodo

Lerer launched The Dodo, a digital platform for animal news in January 2014, and is currently finishing her PhD in Philosophy at Columbia University, writing a dissertation on the complex moral questions raised by the portrayal of animals in art and literature.


Etienne Benson

Etienne Benson Asst Professor, Dept of History and Sociology of Science, UPenn

Benson's research focuses on the history of ecology, environmentalism, and human relations to other species. His is author of Wired Wilderness: Technologies of Tracking and the Making of Modern Wildlife (2010), and has published articles on the place of archives in animal history, the urbanization of squirrels in the United States, and wildlife conservation in national parks.


Dale Jamieson

Dale Jamieson Professor, Environmental Studies; Founder and Director, Animal Studies Initiative, NYU

Jamieson works in ethics and environmental philosophy. His most recent books are Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle to Stop Climate Change Failed--And What It Means For Our Future (2014), and Love in the Anthropocene (2015), with Bonnie Nadzam. He is on the board of Minding Animals International.


Sun Joo (Grace) Ahn

Sun Joo (Grace) Ahn Asst Professor, Journalism and Mass Communication, Univ of Georgia

Ahn is the founding director of the Games and Virtual Environments Lab, and her research interests lie in how interactions within virtual worlds shape attitudes and behaviors in the physical world, including toward animals. She earned her PhD from Stanford University in 2011.


Pascaline Clerc

Pascaline Clerc Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy for Animal Research Issues, Humane Society USA

Dr. Clerc oversees the refinement and replacement of animals used in research, involving work with scientists, industry leaders, and government officials. She holds a PhD in Cellular Biology from the University of Grenoble, France.


Dan Fagin

Dan Fagin Associate Professor, Science Journalism, NYU

Fagin's book Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction, among other prizes. His next book is about monarch butterflies in the Anthropocene.


Andras Forgacs

Andras Forgacs Co-founder, Modern Meadow

Forgacs is an entrepreneur and venture investor, as well as co-founder of Modern Meadow, which develops cultured animal products that require no animal slaughter.


Jennifer Jacquet

Jennifer Jacquet Asst Professor, Environmental Studies, NYU

Jacquet is interested in large-scale cooperation, including overfishing, climate change, and has a new project examining the Internet wildlife trade. She is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Animal Studies Initiative at NYU.


Anna Frostic

Anna Frostic Senior Attorney, Humane Society USA

Frostic's work focuses on captive wildlife and animal research issues. For more than six years, she has led legal efforts on a number of high profile exotic pet and animal research issues, including a petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list all chimpanzees as endangered.


Thomas Augst

Thomas Augst Associate Professor, English, NYU

Augst is Acting Director of Digital Humanities in NYU's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. His own research focuses on literary history of the nineteenth-century, interpreting diverse forms of literacy and media in relation to questions about ethics and self-cultivation, the organization of knowledge, and the cultural politics of modern liberalism.


Thomas Snitch

Thomas Snitch Distinguished Senior Professor, Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, Univ of Maryland

Snitch was part of the first team to fly night UAV (drone) anti-poaching missions in South Africa in May, 2013. He has been working in Washington, DC for 40 years with stints at the White House, US Department of State, NASA, and the National Academy of Science.


Joanna Zelman

Joanna Zelman Executive Editor, The Dodo

Before becoming Executive Editor at The Dodo, Zelman was previously a front page editor and green editor for The Huffington Post. She has written travel pieces from the Himalayas, Patagonia, the Great Barrier Reef and Easter Island. Past interview subjects include former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed, actor Mark Ruffalo, ethologist Jane Goodall, and activist Paul Watson.


Nicolas Delon

Nicolas Delon Asst Professor/Faculty Fellow, Animal Studies Initiative and Environmental Studies, NYU

Delon earned his PhD in philosophy from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in 2014. His main research areas are animal ethics and moral status.