Here is a collection of current and past research projects, interests and activities. In some cases, I provide more detail and you can click through via the images or underlined text segments. I will add more information and projects as I go along.
2026 Grass Tree Fellowship
I joint the first cohort of the Grass Tree Fellowship program in Australia, a program to inquire into nature-inclusive governance with an Australian perspective. It is co-hosted by the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA). With this, I am working to deepen my understanding of nature-inclusive governance and animal representation, and the practical implications for organisational decision-making. The program offers a shared journey of inquiry over a period of six months. It provides the opportunity to develop a blueprint for nature-inclusive governance. My particular interest is in finding ways to ascertain what nature and her animals actually want, and bring pathways to this knowledge into organisational governance reality.
2025 Talks
In 2025, I gave two presentations on intuitive interspecies communication (IIC) and the work of our collective. One was about IIC and its role for Rights of Nature advocacy and discourse at the conference of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA) and the Australian Association for Professional and Applied Ethics (AAPEA) at Griffith University. The other talk was at the conference of the Australasian Animal Studies Association (AASA) at the University of Southern Queensland.
Intuitive Interspecies Communication
With our collective of animal communicators, InterspeciesTalk-TierGespräch, we provide animal communication for animals and their human companions, and we engage with IIC at the level of research. We also offer IIC to support the work of animal rescue, protection and conservation initiatives, and for nature and wildlife representation. We post on social media such as Instagram to educate and inform about our experiences with IIC as such, and about the potential of IIC for giving animals a voice in society and democratic decision-making processes.
Sustainability and Animal Flourishing, a Panel co-convened for the AASA 2021 Conference
I co-convened a panel on the topic “Sustainability as a Promise of Flourishing in Light of the Animal Question” at the conference of Australasian Animal Studies Association (AASA) in 2021. As this conference took place online, we were delighted to welcome panelists from the UK and Sweden!
Interspecies Sustainability
I have been researching sustainability as a concept. It is important to realise that sustainability and sustainable development are conceptually and philosophically distinct notions. For clarity, I prefer the term interspecies sustainability, that is a notion of sustainability that foregrounds the protection and preservation of all life, of ecological systems and processes. For animals, interspecies sustainability means the protection, advancement and facilitation of self-determination, animal agency, animal integrity, ecological integrity, animal cultures, relationality, naturalness, multispecies justice, and animal political representation. These dimensions need to be brought to bear in theory and practice, to include animals in the sustainability transition.
Thoroughbred Racing
I produced a significant body of work (a thesis including publications), investigating the practices in the thoroughbred racing industry, industry leaders’ views of thoroughbred welfare and sustainability, and the differences in how industry leaders and animal advocates view the nature of the thoroughbred – right down to the question: Is the thoroughbred a horse, or a product of human breeding? Interestingly, a racing journalist got the answer wrong and I had to contact them to correct their existential error in reporting on my research. The right answer is: Animal advocates see the thoroughbred first and foremost as a horse, whereas it is industry leaders who consider them to be first and foremost a product of human breeding. This is consistent with the industry’s technocentric approach to animal welfare, and the racing journos mistake speaks to the tone deafness of the industry.
Naturalness
It’s fun to me, watching my first (and so far only) video abstract that I have created for a research publication. (Scroll down to the video, past the Simple Summary, the Abstract and the Keywords. Enjoy!)
Visual Imagery
I work with images in research, such as for photo-elicited interviewing, in education and communication, for visioning and in my art practice.