Rébecca Kleinberger and Lena Ashooh
As technology advances, animals increasingly encounter computational systems — from automated farming equipment to wildlife tracking devices and interactive pet toys — that existing regulatory frameworks may not adequately address.
CAF awarded Rébecca Kleinberger (above) and Lena Ashooh (below) a grant to examine limitations in current oversight mechanisms for animal–technology interactions. Drawing on extensive literature reviews, their project analyzed existing practices across animal contexts — pets, laboratory animals, wildlife, and farmed animals — engaged stakeholders from research, industry, and animal advocacy, and proposed policy frameworks for more ethical technology development with animals. The goal was to reframe animals as participant users with agency rather than subjects of technological systems.
The grant produced substantial results. Their paper “What is An ‘Animal’ Anyways?: From Essentialism to Social Construction Through Research on ACI” was accepted at the International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction. A comprehensive literature review exposing critical gaps in regulatory oversight was presented at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. A detailed regulatory analysis of IACUC oversight was underway, including a survey instrument for animal research regulation experts and documented cases where existing regulations fail animals using technology. A stakeholder workshop drawing participants from Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Northeastern, and local zoos was rescheduled to early 2026.
Dr. Rébecca Kleinberger (LinkedIn) is an Assistant Professor of Music, Humanics and AI at Northeastern University and an affiliate researcher at Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of technology. She directs the INTERACT Animal Lab, a multidisciplinary research team dedicated to leveraging technology to enrich animals’ lives. Her research has been featured in academic venues and media outlets including The New York Times, BBC, and CNN, with her TED-featured talk reaching over four million views. Her photo was taken by Gabriel Miller.
The research of Lena Ashooh (Instagram || LinkedIn) focuses on the social construction of animal categories and ideas about animals. She researches how concepts of these categories, and stereotypes, images, and beliefs about them, play a functional role in the denigration of members of those groups. She is the Assistant Lab Manager for Irene Pepperberg’s parrot cognition lab, where she studies two parrots’ intellectualism, and is a Research Assistant in Rebecca Kleinberger’s INTERACT Animal Lab, where she researches animal-technology interactions. Lena will be completing graduate studies in legal philosophy as a Rhodes Scholar after graduation.
