Dr. Michelle Szydlowski (Ph.D., University of Exeter, 2021) is a Visiting Assistant Professor with Miami University’s Project Dragonfly. She loves water and large, grey, vegetable-eating mammals. To that end, she has been ‘commuting’ to Nepal for over a decade, building relationships with stakeholders of multiple species and conducting research. She continues to work with local communities on conservation projects, animal welfare, sustainability, and human-wildlife conflict mitigation. This work reflects her beliefs that research should offer some benefit to all participants, harm none, and attempt to reflect the viewpoints of individuals from multiple species.

Her research occurs at the intersections of welfare, tourism, conservation, and other-than-human animal/human co-work. Michelle has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and chapters, as well as a monograph. She also serves on the editorial boards of several journals.

She believes strongly in outreach and co-founded/co-hosts The Anthrozoology Podcast. This platform (https://internationalelephants.org/the-anthrozoology-podcast/) promotes conversations between academics, practitioners, and the general public surrounding species interactions. Michelle also cofounded the annual (free) Anthrozoology as International Practice Online Student Conference (anthrozoologyconference.com). Michelle loves to share her passions, speaking regularly about conservation, humane education, elephant welfare, ecotourism, neurodiversity, DEI, etc. She is currently serving as the President of the International Society for Anthrozoology.