Featured Speakers

Carol Adams, Author

Update: Carol will not able to attend TLOV because of personal circumstances beyond her control.

Carol J. Adams is the author of the pioneering The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory and The Pornography of Meat.

Carol's work is widely cited, anthologized and used as a text in college courses in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Besides advancing scholarship and developing theory in the area of interlocking oppressions, Carol has created a series of books that address the vegetarian/vegan experience: Living Among Meat Eaters: The Vegetarian Survival Guide, Help! My Child Stopped Eating Meat! and The Inner Art of Vegetarianism.

Photo by Mark Olencki

Matt Ball, Vegan Outreach

Matt's first animal rights experiences were the local (Animal Rights Community (ARC) of Greater Cincinnati) campaign against P&G, including getting arrested at the shareholders' meeting.

Nowadays, Matt is the Executive Director of Vegan Outreach, an animal advocacy group working to expose and end cruelty to animals through the widespread distribution of printed informational booklets. As of December 2007, over seven million hard copies of Vegan Outreach brochures have been handed out by the local members of Vegan Outreach around the world since the group's inception

Gene Baur, Farm Sanctuary

Gene is the president and co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, the first animal rescue organization dedicated to farmed animals. He has been at the forefront of animal rights since he began the Sanctuary in 1986.

He has played a key role in the passage of several animal-protection ordinances, including a 2004 California law banning the production and sale of foie gras, and a 2002 Florida initiative banning gestation crates. More recently, he was instrumental in passing a 2006 Chicago ordinance banning the sale of foie gras and a 2006 ballot measure in Arizona banning gestation crates and veal crates.

In March 2008, Baur released a book entitled Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food published by Simon & Schuster.

Lorri Bauston, Animal Acres

Lorri Bauston is considered the "pioneer" of the farmed animal sanctuary movement. In 1986, she opened the coutry's first shelter for farmed animals as co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, where she served as Executive Director and President for 18 years.  In 2005, Lorri formed Animal Acres, and opened the Los Angeles Farmed Animal Sanctuary & Compassionate Living Center. Among its rescue, shelter, and advocacy efforts, Animal Acres started ACI: Animal Cruelty Investigations , to enforce California's anti-cruelty laws, and the project led to the establishment of ACI as a state incorporated humane enforcement agency - the first ever state SPCA devoted to farmed animals.

For the past 22 years, Lorri has directly saved thousands of animals from the cruelties of factory farming, and brought national attention to the plight of animals used for "food production". Her work has been featured in hundreds of national and state news reports, and she has been featured in several documentaries.  A native of the midwest (Wisconsin),and growing up surrounded by cows, she is very honored that she has been able to devote her life to the protection of farmed animals.

Karen Davis, United Poultry Concerns

Karen Davis, PhD is the founder and president of United Poultry Concerns (UPC), an organization that addresses the treatment of chickens and other domestic fowl in food production, science, education, entertainment, and human companionship situations and promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. Karen was inducted into the U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame "for outstanding contributions to animal liberation."

Karen Dawn, Author

Karen founded the animal advocacy media watch group DawnWatch.com. As a spokesperson for the animal rights movement she has appeared on MTV and hosted talk shows on major radio stations. Her opinion pieces have been published in leading newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. Her first book, Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals, just came out in May, published by Harper Collins. It is an overview of animal rights issues, delivered in as fun and accessible a way as possible, with hundreds of full color cartoons, celebrity photos, and beautiful art.

pattrice jones, Author

pattrice jones stopped eating meat in 1976 at the age of 15 and flung herself into the new movement for gay liberation. As an activist in a variety of movements since then, she has organized rent strikes, kiss-ins, and an assortment of unlikely coalitions. As a psychotherapist, she studied and worked to repair the repercussions of many kinds of trauma, including sexual and domestic violence. As a college instructor she has taught courses in psychology, public speaking, and social change. She speaks and writes about the links among racism, sexism, speciesism, class exploitation, and environmental despoilation from an ecofeminist perspective.

Erica Meier, Compassion Over Killing

Erica Meier has been the Executive Director of Compassion Over Killing (COK) since 2005. Compassion Over Killing is one of the most active animal advocacy groups in the U.S. focusing on exposing cruelty to farmed animals and promoting vegetarian eating as a way to reduce animal suffering. COK's undercover investigations inside factory farms have been featured in various newspapers, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. Before working at COK, Erica spent four years as an animal control officer in D.C., rescuing sick, injured, and homeless animals as well as enforcing animal protection laws.

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, Compassionate Cooks

A long-time vegan and animal activist, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau focuses her energies primarily on animals raised for food, though she came to be a voice for animals first through working on behalf of those in shelters, puppy mills, and research laboratories.

Compassionate Cooks is dedicated to empowering people to make informed food choices and to debunking myths about vegetarianism and animal rights through cooking classes, recipes and resources, workshops and lectures, articles and essays, the popular Vegetarian Food for Thought podcast, a vegetarian cooking DVD, and their new cookbook The Joy of Vegan Baking.

Hillary Rettig, Author

Hillary Rettig, is an activist, coach and author of The Lifelong Activist: How to Change the World Without Losing Your Way (Lantern Books, 2006). She is also author of the free e-book The Little Guide To Beating Procrastination, Perfectionism and Blocks: a Manual for Artists, Activists, Entrepreneurs, Academics and Other Ambitious Dreamers. You can download the e-book and learn more about Hillary's life and work at www.lifelongactivist.com.

Nathan Runkle, Mercy for Animals

Nathan Runkle is the Executive Director of Mercy For Animals (MFA), a national non-profit animal advocacy organization he founded in 1999. Today MFA has over 12,000 members and offices in Ohio and Chicago. Nathan has played a leading role in the organizations groundbreaking undercover investigations at Ohio's four largest egg factory farms, rodeo events, and a North Carolina poultry slaughterhouse. Through his work with MFA, Nathan has appeared in stories by dozens of newspapers and radio programs, as well as on PBS, NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX affiliates. He has organized hundreds of demonstrations & educational outreach events and frequently speaks on animal rights issues at high schools and colleges. In 2006 VegNews magazine honored MFA with the title of "Non-Profit of the Year" and in 2007 the publication named Nathan one of the "25 Most Fascinating Vegetarians."

Paul Shapiro, Humane Society of the United States

Paul Shapiro is the senior director of the Humane Society of the United States' factory farming campaign. He has spearheaded numerous successful campaigns to improve the plight of farm animals, most notably several campaigns to persuade retailers to stop selling battery cage eggs.

Shapiro is also the founder and former campaigns director for Compassion Over Killing, where he helped lead campaigns such as the successful effort to end the use of the misleading "Animal Care Certified" logo on battery cage egg cartons nationwide. At Compassion Over Killing, he worked also as a farm animal cruelty investigator, primarily documenting conditions on egg and broiler factory farms, livestock auctions and slaughter plants.

Freeman Wicklund, Mercy for Animals

Freeman lives in Columbus, Ohio and works as the Director of Campaigns for Mercy For Animals. He is also writing a book of memoirs focusing on his experiences in animal rights. He is a Sowing Seeds Workshop facilitator for the Institute of Humane Education, based in Maine.