Dr. Laura A. Reese is Professor Emeritus of Urban and Regional Planning at Michigan State University, President of Professional Animal Welfare Services, and is a Research Fellow at the Riley Center, College of Charleston. She was the founding Director of the Global Urban Studies Program at MSU and is the former Editor in Chief of the Journal of Urban Affairs. Her main research and teaching areas are in animal welfare policy, urban politics/studies and public policy, economic development, and local governance, management, and planning in Canada and the US. She has written 14 books and over 100 articles and book chapters in these areas. Her animal welfare research has focused on animals in the city, animal cruelty, dog bites, the human-animal bond, and animal shelter best practices with a particular focus on volunteer satisfaction. She is currently working on two book-length projects on gender and the human-animal bond and volunteer need satisfaction and frustration in animal shelters and rescues.