THE VEGAN SOCIETY - Key Persons
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- Policy & Research Advisor
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- Trademark Sales Executive
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- Director, Smaragdi Consulting Ltd
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- Director of Business Development
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- EDI Champion & Safeguarding Lead
Chris has been vegan since 2015 and is a defender of animal...(Read Bio)
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- Head of Campaigns, Policy and Research
David has been an animal rights based vegan for the last ten years (and a vegetarian for the ten...(Read Bio)
Donald is an economist who taught in universities in Australia and Malaysia before joining the United Nations in New...(Read Bio)
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- Scientist
- Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Lancaster University
Dr Jared Piazza is a psychological scientist and senior lecturer at Lancaster University (UK). He is a member of the Social Processes team in the Psychology Department at Lancaster. His research focuses on issues in moral psychology related to:
how we consider the value of animal lives and treat animals
folk beliefs about moral wrongdoing and how we evaluate the moral character of others
the relationship between emotions and moral judgment
how religious beliefs shape the moral decisions we make
the psychology of meat consumption and vegetarianism
He has published widely on these topics in academic journals such as Appetite, Cognition, Emotion, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Social Psychological and Personality Science, and Trends in Cognitive Sciences. He also writes frequently for popular science outlets, such as The Conversation, and works with organisations such as Greenpeace International.
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- Research and Impact Manager
Matthew Cole is lecturer in Criminology at The Open University in the UK. His current interests focus on the sociology of veganism and anti-veganism and the expansion of a zemiological framework to include attention to social harms inflicted on nonhuman animals. His first book, Our Children and Other Animals: The Cultural Construction of Human-Animal Relations in Childhood, co-written with Kate Stewart, explores how children are socialized into accepting and reproducing the human domination of other animals.
Richard previously worked at the Institute of Education, University of London; and for ten years at Lancaster University, where he was a researcher with the ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (Cesagen). His research interests take place at the nexus of gender studies, human/animal relations, science studies and environmental Sociology. Much current research focuses upon the issue of sustainable food transitions in the context of climate change. In 2018 Richard has been continuing this research and also examining the lack of mention of animals within sociological approaches to climate change.
Richard is the author of the book Animals as Biotechnology - Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal Studies (Routledge, 2010), and co-editor, with Nik Taylor of Flinders University, Australia, of The Rise of Critical Animal Studies - From the Margins to the Centre (Routledge Advances in Sociology, 2014). He has published many articles and chapters on issues as diverse as veganism, antibiotics, ecofeminism, intersectionality, posthumanism, bioethics, and physiognomy.
His own website can be found here
Dr. Heffernan is Senior Lecturer in Molecular Physiology and Nutrition at Swansea University and has been consuming a plant-based diet since 2015. He has a wide variety of research interests sparked during his studies including PhD work on Exercise and Sports Genetics at Manchester Metropolitan University and his postdoctoral fellowship in nutrition and musculoskeletal disease at University College Dublin. His work includes in vivo and in vitro experimental studies working with the sustainable nutrition industry and perusing his own experimental hypothesis concerning the impact of habitual dietary patterns on musculoskeletal and vascular health, and athletic performance.
The latter led Dr. Heffernan, PhD student Joe Page (a member of the Vegan Society Researcher Network), and a wider research team with diverse expertise to create The OMnivorous and Non-meat eater Integrative Physiology and NutriTion (OMNIPLaNT) Study. The goal of the study is to recruit a large sample of participants and asses, in detail, a range of physiological phenotypes across age, sex, race, and athlete status in individuals following habitually specific dietary patterns. The study will utilise ultrasound technology to assess skeletal muscle and vascular health, dual-energy X-ray imaging to compare body composition and bone mineral density, and associated blood-derived biomarkers between diet groups. Dr. Heffernan hopes that conducting this study will improve our understanding of the physiological (and molecular) impact of adopting a specific dietary pattern. In doing so, the OMNIPLaNT study aims to elucidate some of the key questions lacking answers in the scientific literature; What is the impact of a non-meat eater dietary pattern (vegan for example) on muscle size, strength, and quality? How do these diets impact bone health and by extension fracture risk? Can specific dietary patterns impact vascular health? And finally, what effects can these dietary patterns have on athletic performance.
The first OMNIPLaNT Study (and Joe's first PhD study) is now live, consisting of an online questionnaire investigating eating behaviours and appetite for comparison between diet groups, which you can find at https://survey.swan.ac.uk/index.php/788865?lang=en. If you would like to find out more about the OMNIPLaNT Study, current and planned research projects, you can contact Joe and Dr Heffernan at omniplantresearch@swansea.ac.uk or follow the study (@omniplantres) and/or Heffernan on Twitter (@Dr_Heff56).
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- Lecturer in Political Theory, University of Leicester
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- Assistant Professor of World Literatures & Environmental Humanities at the University of Amsterdam
Dr. Emelia Quinn is Assistant Professor of World Literatures & Environmental Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. Prior to this position she received her DPhil (PhD) in English from the University of Oxford. She is author of Reading Veganism: The Monstrous Vegan, 1818 to Present (Oxford University Press, 2021) and co-editor of Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture: Towards a Vegan Theory (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and The Edinburgh Companion to Vegan Literary Studies (Edinburgh University Press, 2022).
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- Business Development Events and Communications Officer
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- Senior Communications and Campaigns Officer
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- Supporter Services Coordinator
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- Campaigns and Policy Assistant
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- Trademark Sales Executive
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- Chairman of the Vegan Society 's International Rights Network and Vegan Rights Advocate
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- Membership and Digital Content Assistant
Jenifer has been a life member of The Vegan Society for over 40 years. She has been passionate about...(Read Bio)
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- Head of Commercial Services
Joe has been an ethical vegan for the past six years and is a proud father to two wonderful...
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- Business Development Manager
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- Senior Volunteering and Engagement Officer
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- Education Officer and Chair of the Vegan Society 's Education Network
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- Digital Communications Manager
Mellissa is a vegan business owner and author, having founded the UK's first vegan retail bakery ‘Ms. Cupcake' in...(Read Bio)
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- Trademark Sales Executive
Paula has over ten years experience working in strategy, advocacy and campaigning for international development agencies and has been...(Read Bio)
Peter has been a vegan since 2006 and a vegetarian since adolescence. He is a London based barrister working...(Read Bio)
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- Senior Supporter Services Coordinator
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- Chief Executive / Operations
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- Fundraising and Partnerships Assistant
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- Profesor
- Professor of Behavioural Science at University
Professor Tischler is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She has a PhD in psychology from the University of Nottingham where she retains an honorary position in the Medical School. Her research focusses on creativity and mental health and multisensory approaches to dementia care. She is involved in research optimising nutrition and hydration for older patients in hospital and is currently developing a study on plant-based diets in older age and provision for vegan diets in care settings. She is co-executive editor of the journal Arts and Health: an international journal for research, policy and practice and sits on the Advisory Board for Boots UK archive and the Hamwe festival, University of Global Equity, Rwanda.