EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Chair – Zoei Sutton

Zoei Sutton (she/her) is a lecturer in Sociology at Flinders University, Australia. She co-founded the International Association of Vegan Sociologists in 2020 and The Australian Sociological Association’s Sociology & Animals thematic group in 2017, and specialises in multispecies sociology and qualitative research. She pursues critical, nonhuman animal-centric scholarship that meaningfully considers the experiences of other animals and their entanglements with humans in our shared social world. Find out more about her work here.

Zoei is also a member of the Activity Fund sub-committee.

Deputy Chair – Dinesh Wadiwel

Dinesh is an Associate Professor in human rights and socio-legal studies, with a background in social and political theory. Dinesh is an active critical animal studies scholar, and also has extensive research experience in disability rights. He is author of The War against Animals (Leiden / Boston: Brill/Rodopi, 2015) and Animals and Capital (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press: 20023) He is also co-editor, with Matthew Chrulew, of Foucault and Animals (Leiden: Brill, 2016).

Dinesh is a previous AASA Chair and a member of the Indigenous Engagement sub-committee and the Activity Fund sub-committee.

Treasurer – Lisa Powell

Powell is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Accounting at Monash University. Lisa is an interdisciplinary educator and researcher bridging accounting, psychology, and education. Her research incorporates posthumanist, ecofeminist, and queer theory perspectives to explore the role of accounting and accountability in social and environmental challenges. Lisa has a particular interest in more-than-human flourishing where her research explores how sanctuaries and rescue organisations account for the flourishing of animals in their care. In her education work, Lisa embeds interdisciplinary approaches to create space for ecological emotions and provide accounting and business students with opportunities to cultivate compassion and connectedness with the more-than-human world.

Secretary – Chantelle Bayes

Chantelle Bayes is a writer, researcher and academic with a background in the environmental humanities. Her book Reimagining Urban nature: Literary Imaginaries for Posthuman Cities was published in 2023 with Liverpool University press. Her research interests include urban nature, posthumanism, critical animal studies, creative writing practices and contemporary literature – in the animal studies space she is particularly interested in how we write and read fiction for multispecies communities. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Southern Cross University doing arts-based and youth-led research for climate change education. https://www.linkedin.com/in/chantelle-bayes-b39a0050/

Chantelle is also a member of the Indigenous Engagement sub committee and the Activity Fund sub-committee.

Membership Officer – Natalie Lis

Dr Natalie Lis earned her PhD from the University of Queensland in 2025. She researches architecture’s influence on human-bird relationships by examining both iconic and vernacular structures, and reveals how architecture shapes cultural symbolism. In addition to her research, she teaches architectural design, theory, and history as a casual academic at UQ.

Natalie is also the AASA membership office, manages the Update the organisation’s fortnightly newsletter and is on the communications sub-committee. https://weavingwarble.com.au/ 

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Andi Stapp-Gaunt

Andraya Stapp is a Māori–Dutch scholar of Ngāti Porou descent and a lecturer in Culture and Heritage at the University of Canberra. Her research occurs at the cultural interface between Aboriginal and Māori knowledge systems and Western feminist multispecies theory, explored through the lens of creative practice. Andraya’s doctoral work investigates processes for making stories with rabbits, challenging dominant narratives about human–animal relations. Her creative practice is shaped through ongoing intra-actions with rabbits, including the rescue rabbits she lives alongside, reflecting her commitment to multispecies ethics, care, and storytelling.

Andi is a member of the Indigenous Engagement sub-committee.

Laura Jean McKay

Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country (Scribe 2020) – winner of the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award, The Victorian Prize for Literature, the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year and co-winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2021. Laura is also the author of Holiday in Cambodia (Black Inc., 2013) and an Adjunct Lecturer in Creative Writing at Massey University. Her latest collection is Gunflower (Scribe 2023). She is the 2025 Frank O’Connor Short Story fellow to Cork, Ireland. www.laurajeanmckay.com.au

Laura is the chair of the Communications sub-committee and a member of the Indigenous Engagement sub-committee.

Rebecca Scollen

Rebecca Scollen is an Associate Professor in the School of Creative Arts at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. She is Program Director of the Bachelor of Creative Arts and Community Wellbeing.  Rebecca’s research interests come together at the intersection of creative arts and animal studies.  In particular, how the creative arts can raise awareness and increase engagement in animal welfare and environmental protection issues AND how animals are represented in creative arts (whether live, deceased or fictional) and the implications of this involvement from an ethical point of view and from a meaning-generation perspective. Along with AASA, Rebecca is also a member of Wildlife Tourism Australia and Arts Health Network Queensland.

Rebecca was the 2025 Conference organiser and is a member of the Conference Art sub-committee.

Fernando do Campo
Dr Fernando do Campo (b. Mar del Plata, Argentina 1987) is an artist based in Sydney where he is Art Domain Coordinator and Lecturer at UNSW Art & Design. Since 2015 he also produces work as the HSSH (House Sparrow Society for Humans). Fernando’s practice engages the histories of non-human animals via anthropomorphism, speculative fiction and archival research. The global south and the legacies of colonialism and modernism that hold these animal narratives are a focus for both his research and the material studio explorations. Recent projects have focused on the possibility of painting as a diaristic archival process and listening as a performative gesture through which to complicate the anthropocentric gaze of both the maker and viewer of artworks. Fernando has presented solo exhibitions in Australia and the USA, and group exhibitions internationally. He is a Sir General John Monash Foundation Scholar, the first artist to ever receive this prestigious award for emerging Australian leaders to study abroad. Fernando is currently working on an ongoing research project with the Green-Wood Cemetery and the Brooklyn Museum, New York and an iterative solo exhibition being co-presented by Contemporary Art Tasmania, UNSW Galleries and PICA across 2021-22 and touring nationally in 2023. He is Artist-in-Residence at the State Library of NSW 2021-22 and represented by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, Sydney.

Fernando is a member of the Conference Art sub-committee and the Activity Fund sub-committee.

Emily Major

Emily Major is an early career researcher who uses Critical Animal Studies, ecofeminist ethics of care, and intersectional approaches with advocacy to promote empathy, compassion, and kindness to nonhuman animals. While she advocates for all species of animals, her current research interests are focused on species of animals that are ostracised in society, such as ‘pest’ or ‘invasive’ species. Emily recently graduated with her PhD in Human-Animal Studies at the University of Canterbury in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her doctoral research critiqued the mainstream possums as ‘pests’ discourse and considered how principles from compassionate conservation could assist in alleviating the socially sanctioned violence and cruelty that is currently targeted towards the maligned marsupials. She has experience in qualitative thematic analysis, reflexive analysis, feminist interviewing, and observational fieldwork. Emily is also a Board Member of NZAVS (New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society), a Research Fellow at the ethics think tank, PAN Works, and mum of four rats, Eri, Trea, Tanza, and Nia.

Emily is on the Communications sub-committee.

Philip McKibbin

Philip (Piripi) McKibbin is a writer from Aotearoa New Zealand, of Pākehā (NZ European) and Māori (Kāi Tahu) descent. He is currently pursuing his PhD on the Politics of Love and Multispecies Justice at the University of Sydney, and he holds degrees in English and Philosophy from the University of Auckland, as well as diplomas in te reo Māori (the Māori language) from Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.

Philip is a member of the Indigenous Engagement sub-committee.

Davita Coronel

Davita Coronel is an early career researcher. Her work explores (urban) challenges to multispecies cohabitation and seeks practical solutions to overcome them. She graduated with her PhD from Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. Her PhD investigated how people can learn to live with flying-foxes in Melbourne. She frequently provides public education about the bats and gives guided tours.

Davita is a member of the communications sub-committee. 

Tracy Young

Tracy Young is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Southern Cross University with a background in early childhood education.  Tracy is an interdisciplinary researcher who integrates child-animal relations, environmental education, and childhood studies, addressing themes of education and multispecies interactions amidst challenging ecological times. Tracy has a particular interest in multispecies education seeking to explore power relations and material-discursive effects between children, families, teachers, animals, and education.  The complex relations with children, animals and environments provide a space for ethical inquiry that troubles how animal species are socially constructed, culturally reproduced and positioned in childhood. By mobilising the potential of critical posthumanism, post-qualitative methodologies and othered(wise) inquiry I invite the more-than-human to share their wisdom.