Douglas Kysar
Faculty Co-Director
Doug Kysar is Faculty Co-Director of the Law, Ethics & Animals Program and Joseph M. Field ’55 Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He was born and raised in Indiana. Under his mother’s guidance, he developed a love of reading and a love of the more-than-human world. Kysar later studied at Indiana University, where his two loves developed further with guidance from the great nature writer and teacher Scott Russell Sanders. After law school, Kysar began teaching at Cornell Law School and moved to Yale in 2008. Kysar’s work studies the way society utilizes laws and regulations to prevent, manage, and respond to threats of harm to life. He has had a particular focus on climate change law and policy for several years now because climate change will bring harm to life on an almost unimaginable scale.
Jonathan Lovvorn
Faculty Co-Director
Jonathan Lovvorn is Faculty Co-Director of the Law, Ethics & Animals Program at Yale Law School, a Senior Research Scholar, and Lecturer in Law. Lovvorn’s teaching and scholarship focuses on the intersection of animal law, environmental law, and food policy, and the search for practical legal solutions that advance diverse public interest causes. Lovvorn and Professor Doug Kysar co-teach the Climate, Animal, Food, and Environmental Law & Policy Lab, which provides a creative space for students, faculty, outside experts, and non-governmental organizations to devise and propagate novel legal and policy strategies to compel industrial animal agriculture to pay the uncounted and externalized costs these operations saddle upon animals, workers, communities, and the environment. He has taught courses on animal and environmental law at Harvard, Georgetown, and NYU law schools, and litigated extensively on behalf of animals and the environment. Lovvorn also serves Chief Counsel for Animal Protection Litigation for the Humane Society of the United States, and as a board member and/or legal advisor to other animal and environmental protection organizations. He holds an LL.M. in Environmental Law from Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College, and a J.D. from University of California Hastings College of the Law.
Viveca Morris
Executive Director and Research Scholar
Viveca Morris is the Executive Director of the Law, Ethics & Animals Program at Yale Law School, a Research Scholar at Yale Law School, and a Lecturer in Law. She founded LEAP in partnership with Faculty Co-Directors Doug Kysar and Jonathan Lovvorn in 2019. Her research investigates the impacts of big business on the environment and animals, including the role of multinational agribusinesses in the climate crisis, strategies to hold agribusinesses and associated actors accountable for their environmental impacts and externalized costs, and policy reforms needed to make agriculture more sustainable, humane, and resilient. She co-hosts and co-produces the Yale University podcast "When We Talk About Animals," which features in-depth interviews with leading thinkers on the big questions animals raise about what it means to be human. Morris received B.A., M.E.M. (Master of Environmental Management), and M.B.A. degrees from Yale University. Her writing on business and the environment has been published by The Los Angeles Times, The Hill, Politico, and other publications.
Daina Bray
Climate Change and Animal Agriculture Senior Litigation Fellow
Daina Bray leads the Climate Change and Animal Agriculture Litigation Initiative within the Law, Ethics & Animals Program at Yale Law School and is a Clinical Lecturer and Senior Research Scholar in Law. Daina has extensive animal law and litigation practice experience, and a sustained and pragmatic commitment to making a positive difference in the ways that we interact with non-human animals. She previously served as general counsel of the nonprofits Mercy for Animals and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and practiced with major international law firms in the areas of litigation and international arbitration. Daina is a past chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) TIPS Animal Law Committee, the ABA International Animal Law Committee, and the Tennessee Bar Association Animal Law Section. Daina received a JD from Stanford Law School, a BA in international studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Morehead scholar, a Fulbright scholarship for research in environmental education, and the 2021 ABA Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law Award.
Laurie Sellars
Postgraduate Fellow
Laurie’s curiosity about the lives of nonhuman animals began in kindergarten when she decided that she wanted to train great white sharks. Before joining LEAP, Laurie received an M.A. in Animal Studies from New York University, where she conducted research on the representation of sharks in tourism activities, the ethics of xenotransplantation, and how the ongoing pandemic has impacted nonhuman animals. Prior to graduate school, Laurie worked as an analyst at an economic consulting firm, The Brattle Group, which provides expert economic testimony in litigation. She graduated from Swarthmore College in 2015 with a degree in economics and political science.
Caroline Zhang
Climate Change and Animal Agriculture Litigation Fellow
Caroline Zhang is a Climate Change and Animal Agriculture Litigation Fellow. She is originally from Carmel, Indiana. Prior to joining LEAP, she worked at the Internal Revenue Service Office of Chief Counsel and interned with the U.S. Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division and the Washington State Office of the Attorney General Environmental Protection Division. Caroline received a JD from Stanford Law School, where she was involved in the Environmental Law Clinic.
Jennifer Skene
Co-host, When We Talk About Animals
Jennifer Skene is a Clinical Lecturer in Law with the Environmental Protection Clinic at Yale and the Natural Climate Solutions Policy Manager with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) Canada Project. Her work focuses on policy advocacy around primary forest protection in the Canadian boreal and other Northern forests, forest carbon accounting and regulation, and Indigenous rights. Jennifer co-hosts the Yale University podcast “When We Talk About Animals,” through which she explores with guests the astonishing non-human world and the reflections, lessons, and insights it provides on our own humanity. She received a J.D. from Yale Law School and 2014 and holds a B.S. in Communication from Northwestern University.
LEAP Student Fellows (2023-2024)
Reni Axelrod
J.D. / M.E.M. 2024
Reni Axelrod is a Joint Degree J.D. and Master of Environmental Management candidate at the Yale School of Environment and Pace Law School. Her professional focus lies at the intersection of public health, human rights, and systems thinking. As a LEAP Fellow, she hopes to explore the impact of climate change on zoonotic diseases, with a specific emphasis on addressing water management in agricultural regions susceptible to extreme flooding. She seeks to apply an interdisciplinary approach to address zoonotic disease transmission that considers the health of people and animals. She seeks to learn how animal law can have a role in public health responses to zoonotic diseases. Prior to law school, she obtained a Master of Public Health at Columbia University and B.S. in Bioengineering.
Stuart Babcock
J.D. 2024
Stuart Babcock is a third year J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. As a LEAP Fellow, he is broadly interested in advancing animal welfare in agricultural, scientific, and wild contexts. Before matriculating at Yale, Stuart attended Northwestern University, where he earned a B.A. in Mathematics and a B.M. in Music Theory, and Boston University, where he earned an M.A. in Neuroscience. Between stints in school, he worked as a software engineer and as a patent professional. In the animal space, Stuart has volunteered with Faunalytics, a data-driven animal advocacy non-profit, and the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, a natural history museum with a focus on connecting Chicagoans to nature. He hopes to leverage his technical background as he continues to explore legal avenues to advance animal welfare.
Anagha Babu
M.P.H. 2024
Anagha Babu is a second-year Master of Public Health Candidate concentrating in Social and Behavioral Sciences. Anagha is Co-President of the student organization, Plant-Based For Public Health, which promotes how eating plant-based is indeed practicing public health. Anagha seeks to unite the lens of animal health into public health and vice versa, to promote population health through diet and ultimately foster the lives of Earth’s sentient creatures. Through LEAP, Anagha hopes to bring about change in public health by incorporating and learning about legal and policy-driven strategies around animal treatment in our country.
Terra Baer
J.D. 2026
Terra is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. She received B.A. degrees in Environmental and Urban Studies and Law, Letters, and Society from the University of Chicago, where she produced scholarship analyzing the feasibility of criminalizing ecocide as the fifth core crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Prior to law school, Terra worked in legal academia researching extractive energy market regulation and design. As a LEAP Fellow, she hopes to further explore her interests in ecocentric legal frameworks, animal rights, and environmental ethics in the context of global governance.
Emily Brookfied
M.Div. 2026
Emily is a first-year Master of Divinity student at Yale Divinity School. She is interested in the relationship between animal ethics and religion. As a LEAP Fellow, she hopes to explore the depiction of non-human animals in the New Testament while considering how these depictions influence modern animal treatment. Emily recently graduated with a B.A. from Washington and Lee University, where she studied English, Classics, and Poverty and Human Capability Studies.
Diarmuid Cassidy
M.P.P. (Global Affairs) 2025
Diarmuid hopes to reduce the suffering and generally improve the lives of non-human animals, with a particular focus on farmed animals. He plans to use his time as a LEAP Fellow to advocate for improvements in farm animal welfare policy, targeting both policy professionals and a wider public audience. Diarmuid is a first-year Master of Public Policy student at Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. Prior to Yale, Diarmuid trained and practiced as a medical doctor and subsequently worked as a management consultant and philanthropic researcher focused on global public health. After graduating from Yale, he plans to work in politics and foreign policy in Ireland and the EU, where (among other things) he will continue to advocate for improvements in the lives of non-human animals.
Jade Chowning
J.D. 2024
Jade Chowning is a third-year J.D. Candidate at Yale Law School. She is interested in the intersection between climate justice, environmental justice, and the labor movement. As a LEAP Fellow, she hopes to highlight the connections between human and non-human animal exploitation under capitalism. In law school, she is a member of the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic and the Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic.
Huangrui Chu
M.S. 2024
Huangrui Chu is a graduate student at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH). He is currently the research assistant for the bird collision project. As a LEAP Fellow, he hopes to dig into this research to make Yale a bird-friendly environment. Prior to Yale, he also joined the Bird Collision Project at Duke Kunshan University (DKU) and visualize the bird collision data based on DKU’s campus map. Huangrui holds a bachelor's degree in data science from Duke Kunshan University.
Ilaria Cimadori
Ph.D. 2027
Ilaria is a third-year Ph.D. student at the Yale School of the Environment. Her interest in animal protection motivated her master's thesis research project. In particular, she carried out a policy effectiveness assessment of four prominent conventions protecting biodiversity with African Elephants as a case study, analyzing data on African Elephants in four countries to see how effective these conventions were at protecting the population over the years. During her Ph.D., she would like to focus her research on new bio-technologies regulations and how they may impact animals and the environment. During her free time, she volunteers at the animal shelter of her hometown. She also has a background in languages and international relations.
Margaret Cyr-Ohngemach
J.D. / M.E.M. 2024
Margaret is a second-year Joint Degree JD/MEM student at Yale School of the Environment and Pace Law School. Her professional interests include supply chain & grid decarbonization, circular economies, food/agricultural policies and ending cruel confinement. Her scholarly interests pertain to advancing and expediting rights of nature and rights of nonhumans in a generally anthropocentric society with a rapidly declining natural environment and ecological milieu. Margaret is engaged at YSE via the Center for Environmental Law and Policy, and at YLS through the Environmental Protection Clinic. Outside of school, Margaret enjoys hiking, yoga, trying new plant-based foods, skiing/snowboarding, and snuggling her two black cats.
Pranjal Drall
J.D. 2026
Pranjal is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. His primary research interests are in the fields of environmental law, corporate governance, and bankruptcy. Before starting law school, he was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), where he analyzed the relationships between misallocation of resources, firm learning, and lease terms on productivity in the U.S. fracking industry. Prior to joining EPIC, he was a Tobin pre-doctoral fellow at YLS and focused on retirement menu design, gun policy, and racial discrimination in a variety of contexts. He graduated from Grinnell College in 2020 with a B.A. in Economics and Mathematics.
Diego Ellis Soto
Ph.D. (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology) 2024
Diego's work lies at the intersection of using emergent technology and satellite imagery to study ecology and conservation biology. His dissertation aims to understand how sudden changes in the environment can lead to drastic responses of wildlife across the globe and whether, in turn, we can learn about environmental change through a bird’s eye view of animals themselves. For this he primarily analyzes large amounts of animal data collected from GPS collars to link these with environmental variables. He is currently exploring whether we can use animal-collected meteorological information (collected through on-board sensors deployed on animals) to predict weather. Another chapter of his dissertation assesses whether extreme events – from heatwave events up to lockdowns occurring during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic -- lead to long-term changes in wildlife behavior across the world. More broadly, Diego has been interested in bringing the humanities and the sciences closer together for the past ten years. Specifically, Diego is interested in showcasing how technology allows us to see the world through the lens of animals themselves, from their individual movements, to the sounds animals make, to an animal music opera he is currently working on. He hopes that such artistic expression increases public appreciation on the beauty of animals in the wild and the dangers they face during their day to day voyages in response to increasing human pressures and warming climates. Diego’s work has been covered by numerous news outlets, including the New York Times, BBC, ABC News, the Spanish news outlet EFE, Yahoo News, and more. He received a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Trier, a M.Sc. in Biological Sciences from the University of Konstanz, and a M.Sc. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale.
Grace Engelman
J.D. 2025
Grace is a second year J.D. candidate. Prior to law school, she worked for a holistic public defense organization in New York City and assisted clients with the civil legal issues that resulted from their contact with the criminal legal and family regulatory systems. She received her B.A. in philosophy from Brown, where she studied alternatives to retributive punishment. As a LEAP Fellow, she hopes to link her background in public defense to topics in animal law and policy. She is interested in the intersection between labor justice, environmental justice, and factory farm abolition.
Kristy Ferraro
Ph.D. (Forestry & Environmental Studies) 2024
Kristy is a sixth year Ph.D. student in the School of the Environment. Her dissertation work focuses on how large non-human mammals impact nutrient and carbon cycles, specifically in northern ecosystems. More broadly, she is interested in how humans think about and conceptualize non-human animals, and understating how conservation scientists use, and speak on behalf of, non-human animals. Kristy received a B.S. in Philosophy and Environmental Geoscience from Boston College and an M.Sc. in Earth and Environmental Science from Vanderbilt University.
Marisol Garcia
Yale Prison Education Initiative 2026
Marisol Garcia is a justice-impacted scholar who graduated in 2022 and 2023 from Trinity College with a Master's in Public Policy and attends Vermont Law School. She is a Yale Prison Education College to Career Fellow for 2022-2024 and is in the Yale Law School Access Program for 2021-2023. Marisol works on policy and research on the intersection of the carceral system, humans, and animals' dispensability in society. She hopes that her continued research on carceral policy and health outcomes will benefit those deemed unfit for society.
Kelli Hata
M.A.Rc. Religion and Ecology, Yale Divinity School 2025
Kelli Hata is a Master of Arts in Religion, Concentration in Religion and Ecology, Candidate at Yale Divinity School. She is interested in Environmental Theology and Philosophy, including Animal Theology and Christian Food Ethics, and Eco-Justice and the Global South. Currently, she serves as a Research Assistant for the Yale Bird-Friendly Building Initiative (YBFBI). As a LEAP Fellow, Kelli will engage in a creative venture called the Haecceity Project, which complements her work with YBFBI. Inspired by John Duns Scotus' notion of "haecceitas" or "thisness," the aim of this project is to undertake what can be likened to "Adam's task." Centrally, the Haecceity Project seeks to assign a unique name to each bird documented within the YBFBI so as to cultivate a profound and personal connection with these individual beings. Through the act of naming and recognizing the distinctiveness of each bird, the Haecceity Project hopes to inspire a deeper empathy and appreciation for the inherent value of these beautiful creatures. Such a connection can serve as a potent catalyst for driving policy reform and systemic change in favor of the welfare of birds.
Sarah Hirschfield
J.D. 2025
Sarah Hirschfield is a J.D candidate at Yale Law School. She is interested in animal ethics, animal-welfare arguments for veganism, and impact investing. She received an M.Phil. in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Sarah holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Princeton University, where she co-founded the Princeton Vegan Society.
Momoko Ishii
Ph.D. (Environmental Engineering) 2025
Momoko Ishii is a fourth-year Ph.D. student of Green Chemistry and Green Engineering. Her research foci include bio-based synthetic materials and CO2 utilization. She is interested in human-animal interactions and responsible ways to engage with non-human species.
Advesh Jalan
M.B.A. 2025
Advesh (he/him) is a first-year MBA Student at the Yale School of Management. He has a varied background in engineering and financial services, but his interest in LEAP stems from his passion for animal rights. In India, he was part of a national collaborative focused on raising awareness about animal rights. As a LEAP Fellow, he wants to learn from accomplished and like-minded people, understand the business and legal context around animal rights and plant-based food in the U.S., and find his niche to build a career in this space in the future.
Judson (Judd) Katz
Executive M.P.H. 2024
Currently at Elligo Health Research as a Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Judd handles and assists in all legal areas of the business. Judd was formerly with the FDA as a lead counsel, as well as several pharmaceutical companies in varying roles. Judd earned his Bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University prior to obtaining his Juris Doctorate from Michigan State University, where he was a managing editor of the Animal Law Journal. He obtained a Master in Healthcare Administration at Seton Hall University, a Master’s of Science degree from John’s Hopkins University, and another Master’s of Science from Columbia University. Judd has graduate certificates from American University in Genetics, Medicine, International Health, Bioethics, and Pharmaceutical Law. Judd also has a Healthcare Compliance Certificate from Seton Hall University School of Law. He is currently pursuing a Master of Public Health at Yale University. Being a LEAP Student Fellow brings together Judd's desire to pursue legislative change and advocacy for animals, and he looks forward to contributing to the program.
Eui Young Kim
J.D. 2025
Eui Young is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. She has a B.A. in philosophy from Yale College. Her interests include effective altruism, factory farming, and plant-based meat. She worked at New Haven Legal Assistance before starting law school.
Rebecca Landau
J.D. 2024
Rebecca is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. As a LEAP Fellow, she is interested in policy issues surrounding the human impact on biodiversity. Prior to attending law school, she worked as a legislative drafter for the South Carolina Senate. In this role, she drafted legislation related to various environmental policy issues, including animal law—from the illegal capture of wild reptiles to the study of microplastics in aquatic life. She holds a B.A. in English and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of South Carolina.
Emma Findlen LeBlanc
J.D. 2024
Emma is a third-year J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. She studies evolving legal formulations of personhood, especially their relation to rights, citizenship, standing, and property. She is interested in how strategies of restricting the legal personhood of historically excluded groups, such as non-white racial minorities and women, are deployed against nonhuman animals in ways that obscure the complex interdependence of structures of oppression. Emma earned her D.Phil. and M.Phil. in anthropology as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and a B.A. in sociology from Brown. She is currently writing a book about poor forest communities in eastern Canada trying to live outside of and against capitalist moral structures. She focuses on the impact of industrial forestry on rural communities’ moral relationships with animals and trees. Previously, she worked as a senior researcher at the ACLU of Maine, where she focused on racial justice and bail reform.
Rosalyn Leban
J.D. 2024
Rosalyn is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School studying the intersections of environmental justice, economic justice, immigrant justice, and the criminal legal system. She is interested in exploring the impacts of capitalism and environmental racism on immigrant communities, indigenous communities, and communities of color. Prior to law school, Rosalyn worked with asylum-seekers and migrants in Guatemala, many of whom fled untenable environmental and economic conditions in their ancestral homelands. She holds a bachelor's degree in English from Mount Holyoke College.
Richard Li
Ph.D. (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) 2025
Richard is a Ph.D. candidate in Yale's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. His research focuses on the spatial and temporal dynamics of biological invasions, and aims to use biodiversity data from global databases to inform and improve the monitoring of species invasions worldwide. Richard is additionally interested in the networks of social and ecological values that underpin conservation decisions around invasive species control and management, at the nexus of ethics, conservation science, and invasion ecology. Before coming to Yale, Richard completed his B.A. in Environmental Biology at Columbia University.
Kaitlyn Maurais
M.P.H. 2024
Kaitlyn Maurais is a second-year graduate student pursing her Master’s of Public Health specializing in the Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. She is interested in studying vector-borne diseases and utilizing One Health intervention and policy strategies to improve the health of humans, animals and the environment. Currently, she is a research assistant at the CT Agricultural Experiment Station studying Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) virus in local CT mosquitoes. Kaitlyn received her Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Skidmore College in 2022.
Chloe Medina
J.D. 2025
Chloe is a second-year J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. She is originally from Los Angeles and graduated from Columbia University in 2021. She is greatly interested in environmental justice and animal law reform, so she hopes to expand her knowledge of those fields while a LEAP Fellow. Animal protection, in particular, is very important to her, so she hopes to focus on that.
Brooke Mercaldi
M.E.M. / J.D. 2024
Brooke is a dual degree student at the Yale School of the Environment and the Elisabeth Haub School of Law. Her background in coastal and marine sciences introduced her to the discrepancies between the reality of environmental issues and the legal structures intended to address them. This issue inspired Brooke to pursue a career in environmental law to help bridge the gap between environmental science, policy, and law. As a LEAP Fellow, she hopes to expand her knowledge on the vulnerabilities of nonhuman species within this intersection and uncover leverage points that can enable more effective legal protections.
Ian Miller
J.D. 2024
Ian is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. He is interested in housing affordability, factory farm abolition, and air pollution as issues of environmental justice. As a LEAP Fellow, he explores factory farm expansion in the developing world. Ian holds a B.A. in Philosophy, History, and South Asian studies from Stanford University. In 2019-2020, he was a Fulbright Research Scholar based at the Supreme Court of India and Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
Jonathan Perez-Reyzin
J.D. 2024
Jonathan is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. He is especially interested in questions about animals at the intersection of law and philosophy, including issues regarding the relationship between animals’ consciousness and their legal status. While completing his undergraduate degree in Philosophy at Harvard, he served as Editor-In-Chief of the Harvard Review of Philosophy, where he oversaw the publication of an issue entirely dedicated to philosophical work on animals. In addition to his commitment to working towards greater legal and political support for the ethical treatment of animals, he also has interests in drug policy reform, criminal legal system reform, and environmental justice, and hopes to think more about the common philosophical commitments which underpin these various legal movements.
Santiago Potes
J.D. 2026
Santiago T. Potes is a first-year student at the Law School. His entryway into animal law has principally been through sport, and he looks forward to studying animal welfare in this context as a LEAP Student Fellow. Equally he is interested in understanding the psychological, philosophical, and economic foundations of differing welfare laws comparatively.
Stefan Oliva
M.B.A. 2024
Stefan is a second-year M.B.A. student at Yale School of Management. He is committed to studying the future of food systems and how best to reconcile the needs of all species in a warming world. At Yale, Stefan also serves as the founding climate deal team lead with the Meng Impact Investment Fund, where he is focused on deploying capital to early-stage startups with high potential for climate mitigation and adaptation solutions. Stefan has previously worked at a remote sensing-focused startup and in climate tech venture capital. Prior to Yale, Stefan majored in both International Relations and African Studies as an undergraduate at Colgate University.
Thomas Peterson
J.D. 2026
Thomas Peterson is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. He is interested in the impact of animal agriculture on climate change and deforestation and in legal strategies for holding corporations accountable for their environmental impacts. Prior to law school, he worked in climate-related shareholder advocacy at the non-profit As You Sow and at Green Century Capital Management, where he led shareholder proposals targeting some of the world’s largest agribusinesses, retailers, oil and gas companies, and banks on issues related to greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and conservation. His achievements include majority-supported shareholder proposals focused on climate and deforestation at companies like Costco and Home Depot. Before that, he worked as a field organizer on campaigns to support legislation on environmental issues. Thomas holds an A.B. from Harvard in History & Literature and in Theater, Dance & Media and was a postgraduate Harvard Williams-Lodge Scholar at the Sorbonne Nouvelle.
Thomas Poston
J.D. 2024
Thomas Poston is a third-year J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. A native of eastern North Carolina, Thomas studied politics, international affairs, and economics at Wake Forest University. He has a particular interest in the legal frameworks governing international trade and development, environmental degradation, and human and non-human animal exploitation, which he explored during a Fulbright research fellowship in Cambodia. Thomas has previously worked with a variety of public-service institutions, including the European Court of Human Rights, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the U.S. Department of State, and the Inter-American Development Bank. He is a Ludwig Program Fellow at the Law School and a 2022-2023 Emerging Scholar Fellow with the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy.
Philine Qian
J.D. 2024
Philine is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. She is committed to social movement building for a more just future and seeks to address the harmful impact of industrial animal agriculture on environmental justice communities in her academic and professional endeavors. Prior to law school, Philine worked at Greenpeace Belgium and was a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs in Los Angeles. She received her B.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Southern California.
Yousuf Rehman
M.B.A. 2024
Yousuf is a second-year MBA student at Yale School of Management. He is interested in interdisciplinary methods that address animal welfare alongside other issues often implicated with animal welfare, such as climate, human rights, racial equity, and economic welfare. Yousuf holds a B.S.E. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Duke University, where he researched machine learning algorithms for geospatial analysis of environmental systems. As a LEAP Fellow, Yousuf plans to develop and promote policy changes at Yale that empower students to disinvest from products derived from animal cruelty.
Ethan Shopmeyer
J.D. 2026
Ethan is a first-year student at Yale Law School and recent graduate of Butler University. There, he completed a senior thesis applying conceptual tools from feminist philosophy in order to establish a critique of latent anthropocentric norms within American legal institutions. At Yale, he hopes to continue such research and eventually pursue a career as an animal scholar in legal academia.
Nathalie Sommer
Ph.D. (School of the Environment) 2024
Nat is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Yale School of the Environment. She works with terrestrial arthropods to understand how evolutionary processes within food webs affect nutrient cycling under climate change. Her previous research has focused on how consistent individual differences in animal behavior (aka animal personality) drives trophic cascades. Nat is broadly interested in the gamut of environmental ethics and the consequences of anthropocentrism on wildlife management. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology and Environmental Science from the College of William & Mary and a M.E.Sc. from the Yale School of the Environment.
Lauren Taylor
J.D. 2026
Lauren is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. She is broadly interested in multi-disciplinary approaches to pushing for structural change. Prior to law school, she worked in political advocacy and specifically focused on researching how digital communication strategies could help register and mobilize underrepresented communities to vote. As a LEAP fellow, Lauren is interested in exploring the intersection of labor, environmental, and animal rights issues.
Quynhanh Tran
J.D. 2024
Quynhanh is a third-year student at Yale Law School. Prior to law school, she served as District Director for a member of the Texas House of Representatives, where she led the office’s environmental policy agenda. As a LEAP Fellow, she hopes to explore how local governments can leverage their power to protect animals and the environment. She holds a B.A. in Plan II Honors and Economics from the University of Texas at Austin.
Audrey Uitenbroek Rosa da Silva
M.A.Rc. Religion and Ecology, Yale Divinity School 2025
Audrey is a first-year student at the Divinity School, where she is undertaking a Master of Arts in Religion, with a concentration in Religion and Ecology. She is a recent graduate of Durham University (UK) where she received a BSc in Geography. As a Leap Fellow, Audrey hopes to explore and develop her interests in environmental policy and environmental justice.
Stephanie von Ungern Sternberg Prufer
J.D. / M.E.M. 2026
Stephanie is a J.D. / M.E.M. student at Yale Law School and the Yale School of the Environment. Before coming to graduate school, Stephanie worked at the Center for Biological Diversity where she campaigned for policies that preserve marine biodiversity and address the climate crisis. Stephanie is generally interested in the intersections of international environmental law, ocean governance, biodiversity conservation, and human and non-human rights. Stephanie holds a B.S. in Marine Biology and Environmental Science & Policy from Duke University.
Lakshmi Venkataraman
M.B.A. / M.P.P. 2025
Lakshmi is a lawyer and an M.B.A./M.P.P. joint-degree candidate at Yale. This summer, she interned with Archer Daniels Midland’s VC arm, focused on alt-protein investments. Prior to Yale, she worked in the Indian animal rights movement. At Humane Society International/India and at the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, she partnered with the government, farmers, and food businesses (hospitality, CPG, retail, and startups) to grow India’s cage-free and alt-protein ecosystems. She co-created India’s first trade association for cage-free egg farmers (2022), chaired India’s first roundtable on sustainable aquaculture and fish welfare (2020), co-organized India’s then largest alt-protein conference — The Future of Protein Summit (2019), and led India’s then largest animal rights conference — India for Animals (2018). Lakshmi graduated from NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, India in 2016, with a B.A., LL.B (Hons.). After Yale, she hopes to bring an intersectional perspective to the US alt-protein industry.
Kathleen Voight
M.E.Sc. 2024
Kathleen Voight is a Master of Environmental Science candidate focused on the conservation and management of working lands in the Rocky Mountain West. Her research focuses on agricultural viability, resiliency, and drought adaptation in livestock grazing systems in southern Colorado. Kathleen is passionate about agricultural systems that bolster ecosystem health, rural economies, and animal welfare. Prior to matriculating at the Yale School of the Environment, Kathleen worked in agriculture, conservation, and environmental education. Kathleen holds a B.A. in History of Art from Yale University and she is a former Rocky Mountain Farmers Union Fellow. In her free time, Kathleen likes to bike, hike, and ski as often as possible.
Maggie Wang
J.D. 2025
Maggie is a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. As a LEAP Fellow, she is especially interested in food systems and sovereignty, urban ecology, and conservation. She holds a B.A. in history and economics from the University of Oxford.
Luning Yang
M.S. (Health Informatics) 2025
Luning Yang is a Year 1 M.S. student majoring in Health Informatics at Yale. Being a person who advocates against animal cruelty, she pays close attention to the progress of the highly appealed legal bills on animal welfare that are still being drafted in China. She actively reflects on the embodiment and practice of animal rights in law. As a LEAP fellow, she hopes to explore how laws and policies can contribute to the prevention of abusive behavior towards animals and the implementation of universal social norms. She also wants to conduct research to investigate how the improvement of animal welfare impacts the mental health of individuals by analyzing population health data. She hold a B.S. in Bioinformatics from the Xi’an-Jiaotong Liverpool University in Suzhou, China.
Quincy Yangh
M.E.M. 2024
Quincy Yangh (he/him) is a Master of Environmental Management Candidate at Yale School of Environment. Guided by his upbringing as a child of Hmong refugees, he centers his life’s work on indigenous and cultural resurgence within diaspora communities. In this work, he aims to magnify the strength of these communities and co-create environmental solutions that center ecological, cultural, and spiritual vitality. As a LEAP Fellow, Quincy will explore the ancestral kinship/relationship between animals and the Hmong Shaman community. In doing so, he hopes to illuminate an alternative, kin-centered, human-animal ethic that his people have practiced since times immemorial.
Undergraduate Affiliates (2023-2024)
Daniel Blokh
Assistant Podcast Producer
B.A. 2024 (Undeclared)
Daniel Blokh is a Russian-Jewish poet based in Birmingham, Alabama. He was a 2018 National Student Poet and is the author of In Migration (BAM! Publishing 2016), Holding Myself Hostage In The Kitchen (Lit City Press 2017), and Grimmening (Diode Editions, 2018). As an Assistant Podcast Producer on Yale University podcast "When We Talk About Animals," he edits podcast audio, manages the blog and newsletter, and helps with anything else the hosts need him to. He's a rising senior at Yale.
