There is growing consensus that the environmental crisis demands a radical shift in our relationship with nature, including how we understand other animals and our place among them. Guided by this insight, my work is grounded in two intersecting lines of inquiry.

First, my research seeks to elucidate the complex dynamics of animal social life, and to apply this knowledge to foundational questions in animal ethics and conservation. Specifically, I investigate how animals manage and mitigate social disruptions (e.g., conflicts), the emotional and motivational states that underlie those processes, and the cultural influences shaping them, with a focus on nonhuman primates. The results of my studies facilitate rehabilitation and reintroduction efforts in forested great ape sanctuaries, applications which I am now extending to urban wildlife rescue settings.

Second, I am interested in how prevailing societal norms, values, and institutions shape contemporary scientific knowledge of other animals and the environment more generally. In particular, my recent work engages critically with human exceptionalism, and how this pervasive ideology—oftentimes hidden—biases scientific exploration of the more-than-human world. My work is highly interdisciplinary, spanning the natural and social sciences and humanities to challenge (and ultimately change) the normative assumptions guiding the scientific endeavor. To this end, I am collaborating with philosophers to reconceptualize the ethical landscape of animal research and its corresponding benefits to science. I am also developing novel arguments about animal emotions, sentience, and consciousness—most recently in the context of birth.

Octopus minds and ethics