Critical Animal Studies Association – Institute for Critical Animal Studies

Critical Animal Studies Association (CASA), founded in 2013, is a list of current paid members, with their:

(1) full name,
(2) e-mail,
(3) four expertise, and
(4) 80 to 100 word paragraph biography.

These names are annually changing and in alphabetically order.

Dr. Angela Lamas Rodrigues, Director, Critical Animal Studies Association
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Allred, Marianne

AREAS OF INTEREST

1. Health
2. Athletics
3. Youth Justice
4. Environmentalism

Marianne Allred holds a doctorate from University of Utah and has worked in the medical industry for over twenty years. She regularly studies medicine, alternative medicine, and health related to pharmaceuticals. She also is involved in outdoor adventures, athletics, running, cycling, and promoting healthy living, mental health, youth development, and education.

George, Amber

AREAS OF INTEREST

1. Nonhuman ethics
2. Eco-ability
3. Critical Race, disability, and gender studies
4. Cultural studies

Amber E. George, Ph.D., is an educator, social justice advocate, and artist currently teaching courses in ethical and social philosophy at SUNY Cortland, Le Moyne College and Misericordia University. She received her Doctorate in Philosophy from Binghamton University in 2007. Her dissertation, “Interpreting Dislocation: Gathering a Sense of Belonging,” employs various visual and poetic metaphors to analyze oppression based on race, gender, and disability. Themes of her work center on challenging the systemic nature of oppression as it materializes in various cultural situations. Her life and work celebrates a kind of belonging for humans, nonhuman beings, and nature with the hopes of achieving social justice.

Hurley, Scott

AREAS OF INTEREST

1. Religion
2. Asian Studies
3. Identity Politics
4. Cultural Studies

Scott Hurley is an Assistant Professor in Religion, teaching various course topics for the Religion Department, as well as Paideia 111-112, the required classes for all first-year students. His research interests include new religions of China and Japan, early-mid twentieth century Chinese Buddhism, animal rights, and welfare issues.

Kahn, Richard

AREAS OF INTEREST

1. Total liberation politics/pedagogy
2. Social movements as educational forces
3. Decolonial and Intersectional Critical Theory
4. Media/Cultural Studies

Richard Kahn is Core Faculty in Education for Antioch University, where he stewards the Environmental and Sustainability Education and Critical Pedagogy specializations, and helps mentor students specializing in Humane Education, for the transdisciplinary Ed.D. in Educational and Professional Practice program. Amongst various leadership appointments, he has served as the American Educational Research Association’s Chair of the Environmental Education SIG and Section Chair for Division B (Curriculum Studies), Ecological and Community Justice, as an Executive Council member of the American Educational Studies Association, and as Co-Editor of the California Council on Teacher Education’s journal, Issues in Teacher Education. Known as a primary international spokesperson for the transdisciplinary field of ecopedagogy, and a founding Director for the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, Kahn is the author, co-author, and co-editor of many influential articles and volumes, including the award-winning books Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, and Planetary Crisis: The Ecopedagogy Movement (2010), Education Out of Bounds: Reimagining Cultural Studies for a Posthuman Age (2010), The Global Industrial Complex: Systems of Domination (2011) and Greening the Academy: Ecopedagogy Across the Liberal Arts (2012). For this, he has been invited to speak across the United States, as well as in Canada, Mexico, Norway, Austria, France, Italy, Brazil, South Korea, and China respectively. Each year he provides peer review of dozens of essays, book manuscripts, and conference proposals related to sustainability education and has reviewed large-scale grant projects for Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council and the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine in kind.

Nix, Kelly

AREAS OF INTEREST

Total Liberation: Humans, Animals & Environment
Comprehensive Humane Education
Critical Analysis and Transformation of Structural Oppression
Radical Pedagogy & Systems-Thinking Leadership

Kelly Nix is an educator and advocate whose scholarship and activism span human rights, animal welfare, and environmental justice. With over a decade of experience in education and school leadership, she serves as the Executive Director of Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary in Colorado. This organization centers education as the primary catalyst for creating a more compassionate and just world. As a board member of the Brave New Life Project, Kelly highlights the hidden human impacts of animal agriculture, advocating for a holistic approach to liberation that addresses intertwined systems of oppression. Her dissertation introduces “The Web of Liberation,” a transdisciplinary framework mapping interconnected oppressions such as racism, speciesism, ableism, patriarchy, and ecological destruction. This model emphasizes coalition-building across movements and advocates holistic justice approaches to encourage integrated solutions in education, activism, and policy. Her academic background includes a B.A. in Sociology, a Master’s degree in Special Education and Educational Leadership, and she is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Educational & Professional Practice with a focus on Comprehensive Humane Education. She will begin the Animal Law MSL Program through Lewis & Clark Law School in Fall 2025. Beyond her advocacy, Kelly enjoys the surprisingly calming and meditative experience of vacuuming, finding peace in the satisfying sounds of cleaning.

Rodrigues, Ângela Lamas

AREAS OF INTEREST

1. Literary animal representation
2. Postcolonial Ecocriticism
3. Utopian Studies
4. Studies on vulnerability and animal resistance

Ângela Lamas Rodrigues holds a PhD in English Literatures and is a full professor at the State University of Londrina (UEL, Brazil), where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on literary animal representation. She has advised Master’s and PhD dissertations and is currently a member of UEL’s Center of Letters and Social Sciences Research Committee. She is the founder of Brum’s Institute: Animal Sanctuary, the first non-governmental organization dedicated to animal liberation in the State of Paraná and the first run by a liberationist scholar in Brazil. The Sanctuary hosts bulls, dogs, fishes, native bees, and protects the local fauna through a reforestation project. Ângela is Associate Editor for the Journal of Postcolonial Writing and member of the Latin American Institute for Critical Animal Studies. She has peer reviewed multiple manuscripts for Brazilian and International Journals and is the author of a book of poetry, multiple articles, book chapters and a book on postcolonial writing.

Salerno, Jen

AREAS OF INTEREST

1. critical pedagogy/ecoability
2. posthumanism/critical disability studies
3. radical self-care/collective healing
4. rights, respect, and equity for children

Jennifer Salerno is an early childhood educator and child advocate based in Baltimore, Maryland. Grounded in critical pedagogy, her work attempts to disrupt dominant ideologies and foster critical thinking, collective empowerment, and social transformation. Jennifer’s educational practice employs an emergent pedagogy that aims to reimagine ability, community, and interdependence with the natural world. As a doctoral candidate at Antioch University, Jennifer utilizes a transdisciplinary framework—drawing on ecoability, posthumanism, and transformative learning theory—to challenge normative notions of ability and independence. Her research strives to advance an ethic of interdependence that recognizes the entangled relationships between human and more-than-human beings in the pursuit of social, disability, and environmental justice.

Schleifer, Laura

AREAS OF INTEREST

1. Total Human, Animal & Earth Liberation
2. Palestine/anti-war/anti-imperialism
3. Social Ecology/Communalism/Anarchism
4. Radical/Liberation psychology, pedagogy & psychosocial studies

Laura Schleifer is a lifelong ‘artivist’, or artist-activist. An NYU Tisch graduate (BFA, Drama), she’s toured the Middle East, performing for Palestinian and Iraqi refugee children with the Boomchucka theater/circus troupe, taught in China, Nicaragua, and at Wesleyan University’s Green Street Arts Center, performed off-Broadway, and arts-mentored NYC homeless/targeted youth. Her original screenplay, The Feral Child, was a Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab finalist. Her essays appear in New Politics Magazine, The Leftist Review, Forca Vegan, The New Engagement, and and an upcoming series for Al Jazeera on contemporary Jewish-American identity, as well as multiple anthologies, including Kropotkin Now! Life, Freedom and Ethics, published by Black Rose Books, Resisting Neoliberal Schooling; Dismantling the Rubricization and Corporatization of Higher Education and Expanding the Critical Animal Studies Imagination; Essays in Solidarity and Total Liberation both published by Peter Lang Publishing, and Fever Spores; William S. Burroughs and Queer Letters, published by Rebel Satori Press. Laura is also Program Chair at Promoting Enduring Peace (https://pepeace.org/), a historic U.S. peace organization, and co-founder of Plant the Land (www.planttheland.org) , a Palestinian-led vegan food justice/community projects mutual aid team in Gaza.

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