Aaron S. Gross, Ph.D.

Aaron S. Gross is Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego, where he directs the Center for Food Systems Transformation. A historian of religions specializing in modern Jewish thought and ethics, he works on animals and religion and on food and religion. He is the author of The Question of the Animal and Religion: Theoretical Stakes, Practical Implications (Columbia University Press, 2014), lead editor of Feasting and Fasting: The History and Ethics of Jewish Food (NYU Press, 2019), and co-editor of Animals and the Human Imagination (Columbia University Press, 2012) and Animals and Religion (Routledge, 2024). He has served as President of the Society of Jewish Ethics and was a founder and longtime co-chair of the American Academy of Religion’s Animals and Religion Group. Gross founded the nonprofits Farm Forward, which works to end factory farming, and the Better Food Foundation.