Director

Jeff Sebo

Jeff Sebo is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Philosophy, and Law, Director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, Director of the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy, and Co-Director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program at NYU. Jeff is author of The Moral Circle (2025) and Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves (2022) and co-author of Chimpanzee Rights (2018) and Food, Animals, and the Environment (2018). He is also a faculty fellow at the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy & Land Use Law at the NYU School of Law, a board member at Minding Animals International, a senior research fellow at Law AI, and a mentor at Sentient.

Research Director

Colin Jerolmack

Colin Jerolmack is Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology. His interests include human-animal relations, resource dilemmas, community, qualitative research methods, and health. His first book, The Global Pigeon (University of Chicago Press, 2013), was a comparative ethnography of how human-animal relations shape urban life. His second book, Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town (Princeton University Press, 2021) is an ethnographic study of how shale gas extraction (fracking) transforms rural community life. He’s also researched and written about zoonotic disease transmission and is currently researching how social scientists and animal ethologists compare patterns of communication and interaction across species.

Executive Committee

Becca Franks

Becca Franks is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Director of the Animal Studies M.A. Program, and Co-Director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program 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. She also 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.

Jennifer Jacquet

Jennifer Jacquet is interested in globalized cooperation dilemmas, such as climate change and the exploitation of wild animals via fishing and the Internet wildlife trade. She is particularly interested in the role of social approval in encouraging cooperation, and is the author of Is Shame Necessary? New Uses for an Old Tool (2015) and The Playbook: How To Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make A Killing In The Corporate World (2022). Dr. Jacquet earned a Ph.D. in Natural Resource Management and Environmental Studies from the University of British Columbia. Dr. Jacquet also served as founding deputy director from 2018-2022.

Yifei Li

Yifei Li is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at NYU Shanghai and Global Network Assistant Professor at NYU. His research concerns various groups of people under China’s brand of state-led environmentalism. He has received research support from the United States National Science Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies, Rachel Carson Center, and many other extramural sources. He is the lead author (with Judith Shapiro) of China Goes Green: Coercive Environmentalism for a Troubled Planet (Polity, 2020). His scholarly work has been featured on NPR, in The Economist, Foreign Affairs, Le Monde, and other media.

Sonali Shukla McDermid

Sonali Shukla McDermid is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, and Chair of the Environmental Studies Department. She is also the Climate Co-Lead for the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (www.agmip.org), which conducts integrated assessments of climate change and food security in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Her main interest lies in evaluating how land management decisions influence regional environments, in correlation to climate, ecosystems, and agriculture and food security. She attempts to approach questions regarding land management from both socioeconomic and biophysical perspectives.

Postdoctoral Associate

Shelby C. McClelland

Shelby C. McClelland (Ph.D. Colorado State University) is an ecosystem ecologist and soil biogeochemist with broad research interests in climate change and food systems. Her current research assesses the potential for technological interventions (supply-side) and human dietary change (demand-side) to mitigate methane and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from animal protein production. Shelby is particularly interested in trade-offs, like yield, land-use, and biodiversity, associated with various mitigation pathways towards limiting global temperatures well-below 2°C. As part of her work through the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection (CEAP), she is also quantifying the impacts of GHG mitigation pathways on farmed animals.

Staff

Hyeyoon (Elaine) Sung

Hyeyoon (Elaine) Sung is a graduate of the Animal Studies M.A. Program. Her academic interests lie in studying how animals are depicted in popular culture, by exploring themes of speciesism in media representation. Hyeyoon aims to integrate her bachelor’s major in Japan in East Asia at the University of Tokyo in her research, and her recent work looks into foxes in East Asian media.

Sofia Fogel

In addition to serving as Program Coordinator at CEAP, Sofia is also Program Coordinator at the NYU Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy and the NYU Wild Animal Welfare Program. Outside of her work at NYU, Sofia is Fellowship Director at the Reducetarian Foundation. Previous relevant roles include Managing Director at Animal Charity Evaluators, Head of US Development at Anima International, and Senior Editor at Reducetarian Foundation. She also served as a research assistant for Food, Animals, and the Environment: An Ethical Approach, by Christopher Schlottmann and Jeff Sebo. Sofia is a graduate of the NYU Environmental Studies and Animal Studies programs.

Toni Sims

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.

Founding Director (Professor Emeritus)

Dale Jamieson

Dale Jamieson is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies and former Professor of Philosophy at NYU. His books include Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle to Stop Climate Change Failed—and What It Means For Our Future (2014), and Morality’s Progress: Essays on Humans, Other Animals, and the Rest of Nature (2002). He is also the author of a collection of short stories, Love in the Anthropocene (2016), with the novelist Bonnie Nadzam. The second edition of his book, Ethics and the Environment: An Introduction, will be published in 2024.