CAF has three boards: the Board of Directors, which serves to implement CAF’s programs; the Advisory Board, which consists of supporters and friends of CAF; and the Emeritus Board, which honors those members who contributed enormously to CAF’s past achievements.
Board of Directors
Jill Howard Church
Jill is a freelance writer, editor, and nature photographer who has worked on behalf of animal protection organizations since 1987, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Delaware Action for Animals, the Animals & Society Institute, the American Anti-Vivisection Society, and the Vegetarian Society of Georgia. She has journalism degrees from James Madison University and the University of Memphis and is the former senior editor of The Animals’ Agenda magazine. Jill served as the coordinator of CAF’s International Compassionate Living Festival from 2004 to 2009. She lives outside of Atlanta, Georgia.
Karen Regan
Karen is an Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she promotes the university’s research, scholarly and creative activities. Prior to joining CU Boulder, she served in a variety of roles at UNC-Chapel Hill, including Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Director of Federal Government Relations. An attorney by training, she supported the arts since she first interned at the City Gallery of Contemporary Art in Raleigh, NC. Many years later, she joined the Board of The ArtsCenter in Carrboro, NC where she served as chair for two years. More recently, she served on Boulder’s Dairy Arts Center’s Board, including in the role of treasurer. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Rachel Robison-Greene
Rachel is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Utah State University where she teaches primarily logic, ethics, and moral philosophy. She was the first Tom Regan Visiting Research Fellow at NC State in the summer of 2019. She is a news analyst at The Prindle Post, where she frequently writes articles on animal welfare and environmental ethics. These are the topics of much of her academic research as well. Rachel is the author of Edibility and In Vitro Meat: Ethical Considerations (Lexington, 2022).
Mariana Arelleno Corbello
Mariana is currently Corporate Campaigns Manager at The Humane League Mexico. She holds a master’s degree in animal studies from New York University, and an undergraduate degree in literature and linguistics from Universidad de Claustro de Sor Juana in Mexico. She has been a freelance translator and wildlife rehabilitator for more than twelve years.
Carol Kline
Carol is Hospitality & Tourism Management Program Director, and Professor in the Department of Management at Appalachian State University, North Carolina. She has a Ph.D. in Tourism Planning & Policy and a MS in Parks, Recreation, & Tourism Management, both from North Carolina State University. She is the founder of Fanimal, which aims to foster community, facilitate discovery, and accelerate career building for people who love animals.
Candace Laughinghouse
In 2023, Candace received her Doctorate in Theology and Ethics from Chicago Theological Seminary. She has a Masters of Theology from Duke; a Master’s Degree in Divinity and Ministry from Emory University; and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Government from University of California, Berkeley. She lives and teaches in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Suzanne Pender
Suzanne is communications strategist focusing on sustainable, organic, and urban farming. Previously, for over twelve years, she led cross-disciplinary programming at the Smithsonian and coordinated modern and contemporary art education and exhibition support at the Hirshhorn Museum. She has also led youth art initiatives in the U.S., India and Cyprus. An artist and muralist, Suzanne has a degree in Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University and her work has been featured in solo and group shows and reviewed in The Washington Post.
Kim Stallwood
Kim is an author and scholar working in animal advocacy. He was the co-founder of the Animals & Society Institute, helped co-ordinate CAF’s International Compassionate Living Festival, and edited The Animals’ Agenda magazine. He is the author of Growl: Life Lessons, Hard Truths, and Bold Strategies from an Animal Advocate (Lantern, 2014). In 2020, much of his research material documenting the history of animal rights was gathered in the Kim Stallwood Archive at the British Library. In 2022, the remainder of his archive was housed at Tier im Recht in Switzerland.
Advisory Board
Carol J. Adams
A feminist-vegan advocate, activist, and independent scholar and the author of numerous books, including her path-breaking The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, Ms. Adams has produced a body of work that’s been widely cited, anthologized, and translated. A recipient of a CAF grant in 1988, she gave the inaugural Tom Regan Memorial Lecture in 2018. She lives outside of Dallas, Texas.
Steve Baker
The artist and scholar, Steve Baker, is an Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of Central Lancashire and has received CAF grants in 2010 and 2014. His work, which in recent years has involved, photography, has been exhibited throughout the UK and internationally, including in two major animal-themed museum shows. Among his books are Artist | Animal and Picturing the Beast. He lives in Norwich, UK.
Sebastiano Cossia Castiglioni
Born in Milan, Italy, Sebastiano Cossia Castiglioni is an award-winning entrepreneur, activist, investor, and advisor to businesses and governments around the world. An impassioned vegan and animal rights activist, his primary focus is on promoting the benefits of a plant-based lifestyle globally, fighting against the cruelty and injustice of animal agriculture, and striving to protect the natural world from the environmental effects of climate change resulting from the consumption of animal products.
J. M. Coetzee
Novelist, essayist, linguist, translator, and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature, J. M. Coetzee was the first writer to be awarded the Booker Prize twice: first for Life & Times of Michael K in 1983, and again for Disgrace in 1999. A number of his writings, including The Lives of Animals, have explored cruelty toward animals. The J. M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice is based at the University of Adelaide in Australia, where he lives.
Dale Jamieson
A scholar of environmental ethics, Dale Jamieson teaches environmental studies and philosophy, is an affiliated professor of law, the director of the Animal Studies Initiative, and the founding director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection at New York University. His most recent books include Reason in a Dark Time and Love in the Anthropocene (with Bonnie Nadzam). He lives in New York, New York.
Syl Ko
Syl Ko studied philosophy at San Francisco State University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is the co-author (with Aph Ko) of Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters. She is currently working on a journal article using the black decolonial tradition that argues against a view that uses Wittgenstein to defend the human/animal moral divide. Syl gave the 2021 Tom Regan Memorial Lecture. She lives in Westbrook, Maine.
Jeff McMahan
Jeff McMahan is White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford, where he focuses on normative and applied ethics. Among his numerous articles and books are The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life and Killing in War. He contributed the essay “Tom Regan: An Appreciation” to The Moral Rights of Animals, edited by Mylan Engel and Gary Comstock.
Mia MacDonald
Mia is the Executive Director and founder of Brighter Green, and the former President of CAF. She is a public policy analyst and writer, who has worked for a number of international non-governmental organizations and has published articles, policy papers, and reports on environment, sustainable development, and gender equality. She has taught at Columbia and New York universities. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Eva Meijer
Eva Meijer is an artist, writer, philosopher, and singer-songwriter. Her work ranges from performance art, music theatre, video, drawing, photography, and toys for pigs. She has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Amsterdam, and is currently conducting post-doctoral research at the University of Wageningen, the Netherlands. Her most recent book is a novel entitled Bird Cottage.
Ellie Sarty
Ellie Sarty is a singer-songwriter—most recently of Food Chain Re-Imagined. A CAF grantee in 1998, she is the founder of Compassion Arts, which organizes festivals throughout the U.S. In 2017, Compassion Arts partnered with CAF to host the 2017 Compassion Arts and Culture & Animals Festival in New York City. She lives in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Peter Singer
A moral philosopher, best known for his book Animal Liberation: The Definitive Classic of the Animal Movement, Peter Singer is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. With Tom Regan he co-wrote Animal Rights and Human Obligations. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
Radhika Subramaniam
A 2018 CAF grantee, Radhika Subramaniam is the Director of The Sheila Johnson Center & Assistant Professor of Art & Design History at The New School’s Parsons School of Design. Her interdisciplinary practice that deploys such platforms as exhibitions, texts, and public art interventions as conscious forms of knowledge-making. Her essay “The Elephant’s I” appears in Animal Biography. She lives in New York, New York.
Jessica Ullrich
Jessica Ullrich is a visiting professor at the Kunstakademie Münster, where she teaches art history and human–animal studies. Her research interests include material aesthetics, posthumanism, ecocriticism, environmental art, performance art, and animal studies. She has curated several exhibitions and video screenings on contemporary art. She lives in Münster, Germany.
Emeritus Board
CAF wishes to thank Marion C. Bolz for her many years of service to the board and Gary L. Comstock, professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University, and co-editor with Mylan Engel of The Moral Rights of Animals (Lexington, 2016). In 2023, we bade a fond farewell to Mylan, professor of philosophy at North Illinois University, Canadian animal photojournalist, Jo-Anne McArthur, founder of We Animals Media and four-time CAF grantee, and Ivy Collier, former Executive Director at the Animals & Society Institute and who currently works at Defenders of Wildlife. We truly appreciate their past, and continued, support of CAF.
Tom and Nancy Regan
Tom (1938–2017) co-founded with his wife, Nancy (1938–2021), the Culture & Animals Foundation in 1985. A leading animal advocate, philosopher, and social justice activist, Tom taught philosophy at North Carolina State University for more than three decades, and wrote many books, including the pioneering The Case for Animal Rights (1983). Nancy graduated from Thiel College with a major in English and gained certification in teaching children with special needs from the University of Pittsburgh. You can read more about their life and work here.