Dr. Christina Risley-Curtiss, an associate professor of Social Work at Arizona State University has 20+ years of practice/management experience in both public health and child welfare. Her primary areas of research are in the other animal-human bond and child welfare. Her course–Other Animal-Human Connections- won the HSUS 2004 Society and Animals New Course Award, she has several  grant-funded projects to research and support animals in social work education and practice. She is past chair of The Arizona Humane LINK, a coalition of animal welfare and human service agencies and is a member of the newly formed National Humane Link Coalition. She has received a  grant to fund the development of an assessment and intervention  program for children and youth who have abused animals. She is both a faculty advisor and Fellow at the Oxford Centre on Animal Ethics and is on the advisory committee for a new Human-Animal Studies Center being developed in collaboration with Animals and Society Institute and Best Friends Animal Society.  She has presented at Oxford on the role of other animals in child welfare, at the American Humane Association Annual Conference on other animals and communities of color, at the Social Work Spirituality Conference on spirituality and other animals and at the first Veterinary Social Work Summit held in Knoxville, TN.  She, in collaboration with the Animals and Society Institute, has launched on online professional development program to train master’s level counselors to treat those who have abused other animals. She grew up on a farm in Connecticut, where her father and grandfather practiced veterinary medicine. She does hands-on rescue work including having volunteered at Best Friends Katrina shelter in Tylertown, MS. and being a founding member of a TNR feral cat program at ASU. She currently lives in a trans-species cultural home with 19+ other animals.

Dr. Kenneth Shapiro is founder and executive director of Animals and Society Institute, founding editor of Society and Animals: Journal of Human-Animal Studies; and cofounding, coeditor of Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science. Shapiro earned his BA from Harvard University and his PhD in clinical psychology from Duke University. His most recent book is Animal Models of Human Psychology: Critique of Science, Ethics and Policy.  Dr. Shapiro and his colleagues developed the Anicare model for assessing and treating animal cruelty. He does training in this model nationally.