Featured Speakers

Carol Adams, Author - Keynote Speaker

Carol J. Adams is the internationally-known author of the ground-breaking feminist-vegan work, The Sexual Politics of Meat, released this year in a 20th anniversary edition, which has been translated into German, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. She is also the author of many other books including The Pornography of Meat, Living Among Meat Eaters, and Neither Man nor Beast. With Josephine Donovan she has edited three collections on feminism and animals: Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations, Beyond Animal Rights, and most recently, The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics: A Reader (Columbia, 2007). Her interest is in analyzing and challenging interconnected oppressions, and in creating progressive theory that decenters the human. Her Sexual Politics of Meat Slide Show, which she is constantly revising, has been shown on more than 100 campuses and in several countries.

Mark Berkson, Professor at Hamline University

Mark Berkson is a professor in the Department of Religion at Hamline University. He holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies and Humanities from Stanford University, and teaches courses in comparative religion, Islam, and the religious traditions of East and South Asia. He also teaches a seminar entitled, "Resources or Relatives: The Ethical Status of Non-Human Animals." His scholarly work has addressed topics such as comparative religious thought, death and dying, and interfaith dialogue. Last year, he organized a panel on animal welfare activism at Hamline University and presided over a roundtable session on animals and religion at the annual American Academy of Religion conference.

Mary Britton Clouse, Chicken Run Rescue

A long time animal advocate and artist, Mary Britton Clouse and her husband Albert Clouse run a Minneapolis animal sanctuary, Chicken Run Rescue (CRR). Britton Clouse is a past President of the Animal Rights Coalition, Co-Founder of Legislative Efforts for Animal Protection, the Minnesota Spay Neuter Project and Justice for Animals Arts Guild. Her art work was recently featured in the The Animal Gaze: Symposium and Art Exhibition at London Metropolitan University and Vegan Voice Magazine. At CRR, Mary provides the birds with temporary shelter and vet care, locates and screens adopters within 90 miles of the Twin Cities and transports the birds to their new homes. CRR is the only urban chicken rescue of its kind and receives no support from any other organizations.

Christine Coughlin, Minnesota Voters for Animal Protection

Christine is the founder and Executive Director of Minnesota Voters for Animal Protection, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting all animals by promoting humane legislation and legislators in MN. Prior to her work with MVAP she served as President of Circus Reform Yes, where she led the campaign that attempted to prohibit wild animal circuses in Minneapolis. She has assisted the City of Minneapolis in drafting its new circus regulations, is a volunteer Humane Educator with Bridges of Respect, and has served as a volunteer with both the Minneapolis municipal animal shelter and the (former) St. Paul Humane Society for Companion Animals.

Erica Meier, Compassion Over Killing - Keynote Speaker

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.

Jack Norris, Vegan Outreach

Jack Norris co-founded Vegan Outreach in 1993 and is currently the President and runs their Adopt A College program which has directly handed a Vegan Outreach brochure to almost three million students since it started in the Fall of 2003. In 2005, Jack was elected to the Animal Rights Hall of Fame.

Jack is a Registered Dietitian. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Nutrition and Dietetics from Life University (Marietta, GA) in 2000 and performed a Dietetic internship at Georgia State University in 2000-2001. Jack has authored numerous health related articles which can be found at at VeganHealth.org and JackNorrisRd.com.

Norm Phelps, Author

Norm Phelps is the former spiritual outreach director of The Fund for Animals, as well as a founding member of the Society of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians (SERV) and a contributing writer for Satya. His goal is for faith communities of all traditions to include animals within the scope of their compassionate ministries. Norm Phelps is author of The Dominion of Love, The Great Compassion and The Longest Struggle. Norm lives in Funkstown, Maryland with his wife, Patti Rogers, and their family of rescued cats.

Dave Rolsky, Compassionate Action for Animals

Dave Rolsky is a co-founder and board member of Compassionate Action for Animals. He has been active with CAA since their inception in 1998. Recently, his primary focus in the organization has been event planning, including helping organize all three TLOVs, fundraising, financial management, and doing geek stuff for the organization.

In his day job, he is a computer programmer, and the creator of free software used by people and organizations around the world. He put his programming skills to work for the animals by creating VegGuide.org, a world-wide guide to veg-friendly food and shopping co-sponspored by Compassionate Action for Animals and Mercy for Animals.

In his free time, he enjoys reading speculative fiction, mangling spoken Chinese, and eating delicious vegan food, especially dessert.

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's played an integral role in numerous successful legislative and corporate campaigns to improve the plight of farm animals. Shapiro's work has helped enact farm animal protection laws in California, Arizona, Michigan, Maine, Colorado, and Oregon. He's also worked with dozens of companies, including some of the world's top retailers, to improve animal welfare in their supply chains.

Shapiro founded Compassion Over Killing in 1995 and served as its campaigns director until January 2005. While there, he worked as a farm animal cruelty investigator and led initiatives such as the successful effort to end the use of the misleading "Animal Care Certified" logo on battery cage egg cartons nationwide.

Shapiro has been interviewed in hundreds of print, broadcast, and online news sources as an authority on farm animal welfare and animal advocacy. He has also published dozens of articles about animal welfare in publications ranging from daily newspapers to academic journals.

Zoe Weil, Institute for Humane Education

Zoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE). She has been a humane educator for over 25 years and is considered a pioneer in the comprehensive humane education movement which seeks to educate a generation to be conscientious choicemakers and engaged changemakers for a peaceful, sustainable and humane world.

Zoe is the author of Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life, Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times, So, You Love Animals: An Action-Packed, Fun-Filled Book to Help Kids Help Animals, The Power and Promise of Humane Education, and the Moonbeam gold medal winner for juvenile fiction, Claude and Medea: The Hellburn Dogs. Zoe blogs at www.zoeweil.com.