History of Animal Studies at MSU The Animal Turn Book Series Recent Publications Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies Student Resources

Faculty in the Animal Studies Graduate Specialization

Linda Kalof is Professor of Sociology, Professor of Community Sustainability and founder of MSU's interdisciplinary graduate specialization in Animal Studies.

She has published widely in animal studies, including Making Animal Meaning, Looking at Animals in Human History, A Cultural History of Animals in Antiquity, The Animals Reader, Essentials of Social Research, and a reader in Environmental Values.

She was a General Editor for Berg's six-volume series A Cultural History of Animals (winner of the 2008 Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title) editor of The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies (Oxford University Press, 2017) and The Animal Turn (Michigan State University Press).  She has served on the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council Committee’s review of the US wild horse and burro management program and the Advisory Boards of the National Museum of Animals and Society, Detroit Center for Zoo Animal Welfare, the Dama International Project, and was recently appointed an Annenberg Petspace Fellow.  Her research focuses on the illustration of animals in popular science and has received funding from the National Science Foundation.

 

David Favre was a practicing attorney in Virginia, prior to joining the Law College faculty in 1976. He has written several articles and books dealing with animal issues including such topics as animal cruelty, wildlife law, the use of animals for scientific research, and international control of animal trade. His books include Animal Law and Dog Behavior, Animal Law: Welfare, Interest, and Rights, and International Trade in Endangered Species. He also has presented to international audiences on these topics. He is a national officer of the Animal Legal Defense Fund and of the ABA Committee on Animal Law. He served as interim dean of the Law College from 1993 to 1996 and from 1999 to 2000. He teaches Property, International Environmental Law, Wildlife Law, and Animal Law.

 

Jennifer Carrera is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University. She has a joint appointment between the Department of Sociology and the Environmental Science and Policy Program. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an M.S. in Biostatistics from Emory University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Boston University. In 2014-2015 she completed postdoctoral training with the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute (SSEHRI) at Northeastern University under the direction of Phil Brown. Dr. Carrera is part of the campus-wide Global Water Initiative. Her area of research focuses on environmental justice issues of access to clean water and sanitation in low-income communities domestically and internationally. Her work examines the role of power and exclusion in the production of marginalized spaces and bodies, using water as a surrogate for mapping power. Jennifer'’'s animal studies focus is on search and rescue dogs.

 

William J. Chopik is a social/personality psychologist in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University. He is interested in how close relationships--and the people and animals in them--change over time and across their lifespans. With respect to animal studies, Dr. Chopik is particularly interested in whether and how human-animal relationships can be enriched, so that it benefits the health and well-being of both parties over time.

Thomas Dietz is University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Environmental Science and Policy at Michigan State University. He has served on numerous U.S. National Research Council committees and has been active in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has won the Sustainability Science Award from the Ecological Society of America. He has worked extensively in areas such as climate change and coupled human and natural systems. That work underpins his interests in animals and society. His research interests include evolutionary perspectives on cultural change and on the relationship between humans and other animal species, the social psychology of animal concern and the political economy of other animals in human society.

 

Stephen P. Gasteyer is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University. Dr. Gasteyer’s research focuses on the nexus between water, land, community development. Specifically, his research currently addresses: 1) community capacity development and civic engagement through leadership training; 2) the political and social processes that enable or hinder community access to water and land resources, specifically (but not exclusively) in rural communities; 3) the class and race effects of access to basic services (water, sanitation, food, health care); 4) community capacity, community resilience and water systems management; 5) the impacts of greening in economically depressed small cities; 6) the community aspects of bioenergy development; 7) international social movements and community rights to basic services; and 8) facilitating cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary partnerships to address water and land resources management. Before coming to Michigan State University, Dr. Gasteyer was on faculty in the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of Illinois. Prior to that, he was Research and Policy Director at the Rural Community Assistance Partnership in Washington, DC and a research consultant on issues of global water governance. Dr. Gasteyer was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali from 1987 through 1990, and worked with environmental non-governmental organizations from 1993 through 1998 in the Palestinian territories. He received a BA from Earlham College in 1987, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Iowa State University in 2001.

 

 

 

Scott Michaelsen is a professor in the Department of English.  His research interests include science fiction, “weird” literature, and the history and theory of anthropology, law, and “race.”

He is the author of Border Theory: The Limits of Cultural Politics (Minnesota 1997, with David E. Johnson), The Limits of Multiculturalism: Interrogating the Origins of American Anthropology (Minnesota 1999), Anthropology’s Wake: Attending to the End of Culture (Fordham 2008, with David E. Johnson), and The Love of Ruins: Letters on Lovecraft (SUNY 2017, with Scott Cutler Shershow).  He is the co-editor-in-chief (with David E. Johnson) of CR: The New Centennial Review, and co-edits (again with Johnson) the book series, “Literature…In Theory” from SUNY Press.

 

Georgina Montgomery received her PhD in the History of Science and Technology from the University of Minnesota in 2005. After teaching for two years at Montana State University, Dr. Montgomery joined Lyman Briggs College (75% appointment) and History (25% appointment) in the fall of 2008. Her research focuses on the history of field science, particularly the development of field methods and sites within primatology and animal behavior studies. Primatology is a transnational science and thus her research also analyzes issues concerning race, gender and globalization. She is an award-winning educator with teaching awards from the University of Minnesota and the Humane Society of the United States. Her courses explore fundamental and often controversial topics in science and society and integrate experiential learning whenever possible.

 

Laura A. Reese is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning and Political Science and founding Director of the Global Urban Studies Program (GUSP) at Michigan State University.  Dr. Reese’s main research and teaching areas are in animal welfare policy, urban politics and public policy, economic development, and local governance and management in Canada and the US.  She has written 11 books and over 115 articles and book chapters in these areas as well as public personnel administration focusing on the implementation of sexual harassment policy.  She is the editor of the Global Urban Book Series with Routledge Publications and past editor of the Journal of Urban Affairs and conducts training for local and state government officials on animal welfare and control policies and economic development incentives.  She is currently working on a project funded by the Stanton Foundation to identify and disseminate animal shelter best practices and has explored the networks of animal rescue services in Detroit and the geographic patterns of risk of dog bites in the city.

 

Carl S. Taylor, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Sociology with extensive experience in field research aimed at the reduction of violence involving American youth. He has worked with communities, foundations and government agencies in understanding gangs, youth culture, and violence. Some of the organizations include the Guggenheim Foundation, the C. S. Mott Foundation, the FBI Academy , and the Children's Defense Fund. Additionally, he serves as the principal investigator for the Michigan Gang Research Project. Carl conducted the spring 2010 animal studies seminar on the social problem of dogfighting.

 

Paul Thompson is the author of The Spirit of the Soil: Agriculture and Environmental Ethics; The Ethics of Aid and Trade; Food Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective, and co-editor of The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism. He has served on many national and international committees on agricultural biotechnology and contributed to the National Research Council report The Environmental Effects of Transgenic Plants. He is a Past President of the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society and the Society for Philosophy and Technology, and is Secretary of the International Society for Environmental Ethics. He has continuing interests in environmental and agricultural ethics.

 

Laurie Thorp is director of the Residential Initiative on the Study of the Environment (RISE).  Thorp holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Education from Texas A&M University. She is one of the founders of the MSU Student Organic Farm (SOF) and serves on the SOF steering team. For the past four years she has been collaborating with colleagues in the departments of Animal Science, Philosophy, and Sociology to study sustainable pork production and student ethical development.

 

Jonathan R. Weaver is an Assistant Professor and Director of Online Learning in the Psychology Department at Michigan State University. His research has primarily explored the beliefs about manhood and the implications for men's physical aggression, risk-taking behaviors, attitudes towards gay men, and romantic relationships. Specifically, his past research has focused on the precariousness of manhood status and the consequences that follow from a manhood threat. In regards to animal studies, Dr. Weaver is interested in the associations between animal-human personality trait associations and relationship outcomes.

 

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Antoine Doré Affiliation: Research Fellow at INRA UMR AGIR 1248 BP 52627 31326 Castanet-Tolosan Cedex France Email: antoine.dore@inra.fr More Info

Antoine Doré is a researcher at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA). He holds a PhD in Sociology from Sciences Po – Paris Institute of Political Studies and a PhD in Environmental Science & Management from ULg University of Liège. Dr. Doré’s research is set on the management and government of life, specifically on the agricultural and environmental sector.  His main area of interest as well as academic expertise covers the area of Science and Technology Studies, Organization Studies, Sociological studies of human/animal relationships, Infrastructure Studies, Biopolitics as well as Mapping and interpreting controversies. He has conducted research on politics of nature (in the controversial management of wolf population), organization and governance of risk (in the management of Desert Locust Outbreaks in West Africa), “systems of professions” in the social worlds of livestock production (professional identities in dairy cattle sector). He is currently conducting research about the organization of animal genetic resources and the genomic selection. He was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology and affiliated wih the Animal Studies Program during the 2015-16 academic year.

 

Ryan Gunderson Affiliation: Department of Sociology and Gerontology, Miami University Email: gunderrm@miamioh.edu More Info

Ryan Gunderson is a tenure-track assistant professor at Miami University, where he teaches animal studies courses for the social justice major in the Department of Sociology and Gerontology. He served as a fixed-term Assistant Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University from Fall 2014 to Spring 2015. He earned a PhD in Sociology with Specializations in Animal Studies, Environmental Science & Policy, and Gender, Justice, & Environmental Change from MSU in Fall 2014. His dissertation was a systematic analysis of the works of the first-generation Frankfurt School to document how early critical theory can conceptually and theoretically inform sociological examinations of human-nature relations, including human-animal relations. He has researched the social, environmental, and animal welfare consequences of intensive livestock production from a Marxist perspective. Currently, he is pursuing a critical sociological examination of geoengineering. He has published in Critical Sociology, Organization & Environment, Sociologia Ruralis, Telos, and other journals.

 

 

Allie Phillips Affiliation: Director, National Center for Prosecution of Animal Abuse Email: allie@alliephillips.com More Info

Allie Phillips is a nationally recognized author, attorney, and advocate for animals and vulnerable victims and was honored as one of the Top Animal Defenders of 2015. She is a legal expert on the linkage between violence to animals and people, therapy animals helping crime victims, sheltering pets of domestic violence, human-animal interactions, and pound seizure (shelter animals used in research). She is licensed to practice law in Michigan and Maryland and has significant criminal prosecution trial experience as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Michigan. She developed and managed national initiatives including creating the first written guidelines on housing pets at family violence shelters (Sheltering Animals & Families Together (SAF-T)™ and Therapy Animals Supporting Kids (TASK)™ Programs). In 2011, Ms. Phillips rejoined NDAA to launch the National Center for Prosecution of Animal Abuse to raise awareness of how animal abuse co-occurs with other crimes. Her work has been featured on The Today Show, by the Associated Press, and in The Washington Post, USA Today, Denver Post, Cat Fancy Magazine, Chatelaine Magazine (Canada), Colorado Public Radio, Washington Public Radio, and national animal radio talk shows.

 

Pamela Smith Affiliation: Department of Sociology Email: smithpr@msu.edu More Info

Pamela R. Smith is a Research Associate and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. Dr. Smith leads the field research for the Detroit Urban Research Project. Animal welfare has been part of the overall focus as she investigates the complexity of poverty, crime, and education for the residents in post industrial Detroit. Dr. Smith has found that many former family pets have been abandoned, living in abandoned neighborhoods. Her work has involved girls, juveniles, youth gangs, and families. Dr. Smith has published in academic journals, book chapters and books. She has worked closely over the past decade with a host of community activist, educators, and urban researchers.

 

Animal Studies at Michigan State University
Department of Sociology
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
phone: 517-355-6640 | fax: 517-432-2856