The Animals & Society Institute Fellowship: Catalyzing work in human-animal studies

The Animals & Society Institute (ASI) launched its Human-Animal Studies Fellowship program in 2007. The aim of the Fellowship is to support research pertaining to relationships between humans and other animals, thereby helping to establish Human-Animal Studies (HAS)2 as a robust academic field. ASI’s leadership appreciated that a program that created a network and brought researchers together for a short time would be an important tool for building capacity in HAS, an emerging transdisciplinary research area, composed of geographically disparate scholars (many of whom are early in their careers). The inaugural 2007 Fellowship took place in Raleigh, NC, at North Carolina State University (NCSU), which had the added benefit of being the home of Professor Tom Regan (who actively participated and supported the Fellows throughout their time there) and his archive at the NCSU library. Subsequently, the ASI fellowship program moved around the United States, supported by HAS scholars at Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI), Duke University (Durham, NC), and Clark University (Worcester, MA), before establishing a home in 2011 at Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT)