LEAP Welcomes New 2024-25 Student Fellows

A blue, cloudy sky framed by the slate roof and brick chimneys of Sterling Law Building, as seen from the courtyard

The Law, Ethics & Animals Program (LEAP) at Yale Law School welcomed its 2024–25 cohort of LEAP Student Fellows this month for the program’s first meeting of the academic year.

In addition to 25 returning Fellows, the gathering inaugurated 23 new Student Fellows, who represent many of Yale University’s graduate and professional schools. This year’s new class of Student Fellows includes students from Yale Law School, as well as Yale’s Divinity School, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Medical School, School of Architecture, School of the Environment, and School of Public Health.

The new cohort of fellows brings diverse experiences and perspectives in law and policy, public health and epidemiology, animal ethics and advocacy, theology and spirituality, architectural design, and environmental history. Their interests are wide-ranging and include animal ethics, industrial animal agriculture’s environmental and climate impacts, how migrant rights and animal rights intersect, the relationship between animal welfare and human public health outcomes, improving the treatment of animals used in experiments, how human activities affect wild animals’ physiologies and biochemistries, food system transformation, the spiritual human-animal bond, how multi-species interactions shape cultural and ecological heritage, and more. 

READ MORE: biographies of this year’s LEAP Student Fellows

The goal of the LEAP Student Fellows Program, which launched in 2019, is to support the academic and professional goals of exceptional Yale students interested in protecting animals and exploring the questions raised by humanity’s treatment of others creatures, to empower these students to do impactful work while at Yale, and to connect a robust community of students dedicated to protecting animals during their time at Yale.

READ MORE: About the LEAP Student Fellows program