International Executive Board of Directors

Dr. Steven Best

Dr. Best is Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at University of Texas, El Paso. Author and editor of 8 books and over 100 articles and reviews, Best works in the areas of philosophy, cultural criticism, mass media, social theory, postmodern theory, animal rights, bioethics, and environmental theory.  Two of his books, The Postmodern Turn and The Postmodern Adventure (both co-authored with Douglas Kellner) won awards for philosophy books of the year. With Tony Nocella, he is co-editor of the acclaimed volumes Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals (Lantern Books, 2004) and Igniting a Revolution: Voice in Defense of the Earth (AK Press, 2006). His newest book is Animal Rights and Moral Progress: The Struggle for Human Evolution (Rowman and Littlefield, 2007). Many of his writings can be found at: www.drstevebest.com.

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Dr. Carol Gigliotti

Gigliotti is a writer, educator, and artist, currently teaches Interactive Design and Media at Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver, BC. Canada. She has been involved in new media since 1989 and has been writing about ethics and technologies for the last thirteen years. She has returned to teach at ECI from a year off working on a number of writing projects. One project, "Genetic Technologies and Animals" was published this January 2006 as a special issue of the Springer_Verlag journal AI and Society. Gigliotti guest edited this issue which includes her essay, ‘‘Leonardo’s choice: the ethics of artists working with genetic technologies’, and essays by philosopher Steven Best, literary theorist Susan McHugh, feminist biologist Lynda Birke and a dialogue between Gigliotti and cultural theorist, Steve Baker.

During the year she was on leave, she began research for a book on "Wildness and Technology" on which she is continuing to work. An essay called "Artificial life and the lives of the non-human," was published in the June06 issue of Parachute. This essay "engages contested ideas about how and why we need to look closely at assumptions about animal consciousness and animal cognition in artistic practices of the artificial", and includes discussion of the work of artists, Ken Rinaldo and France Cadet. Her essay, "Sustaining Creativity and the Loss of the Wild" is included in the upcoming Intellect Press collection edited by Mel Alexenberg, Educating Artists in a Digital Age: Learning at the Intersections of Art, Science, Technology, and Culture. "Shifting Vision: the importance of metaphor in the recent work of M. Simon Levin" an essay commissioned by Surrey Art Gallery for the upcoming digital catalogue on the recent environmental work of M. Simon Levin, will be published early next year. In the past few years she gave the keynote at Interactive Futures 05 at the Victoria International Independent Film Festival on the ethics of artists working with biotechnologies and the opening keynote at the NEW FORMS 05 Festival at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, BC. on "The Power of the Non-Human." Gigliotti is Co-Chair of Research Cluster B at the innovative Centre for Interactive Research in Sustainability (CIRS), and developed and teaches the Michael Davies Seminar on Environmental Ethics in the Humanities area at ECI.

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Richard Kahn

Kahn is an Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations and Research at the University of North Dakota. He is the co-founder of Ecopedagogy Association International Many of his writings and more about him can be found at his website.

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Dr. Lisa Kemmerer
Director of ICAS

Lisa Kemmerer earned a BA from Reed College , a Masters Degree in Theology from Harvard Divinity, and a PhD in Philosophy from University of Glasgow , Scotland . She has taught philosophy and religions in Alaska , Washington , and Scotland , and currently teaches at Montana State University , Billings . Lisa has written numerous articles, focusing on the area of applied ethics; she has directed, and produced two documentaries on Buddhism, and is the author of, In Search of Consistency: Ethics and Animals (Brill Academic, 2006). Lisa is an activist, artist, traveler, and adventurer who has hiked, biked, and kayaked widely.

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Anthony J. Nocella II
ICAS Conference Committee Chair

Anthony J. Nocella, II, is a Social Science doctoral student at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. He is focusing his attention on peacemaking with international and domestic revolutionaries and extremist groups, social movements, and conflict studies. He is a Graduate Assistant in the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflict, Coordinator of Syracuse! Social Movement Initiative, and is on the Editorial Board of the Maxwell Review. He holds a M.A. in Peacemaking and Conflict Studies and a graduate certificate in mediation from Fresno Pacific University. His interest in peacemaking with revolutionary and extremist groups has fostered relations with the American Indian Movement, Sinn Fein, Earth Liberation Front, Animal Liberation Front, FARC, and EZLN. He was involved with peacemaking in Colombia with Mennonite Central Committee. He has taught workshops in mediation and tactical analysis, and has assisted in a number of legal committees in the Americas. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Revolutionary Peacemaking and Education with Richard Kahn and Center on Animal Liberation Affairs. He has written in more than a dozen publications and is author of Introducing Restorative Justice to Activists, Handbook: A Peacemaker's Guide for Building Peace with a Revolutionary Group, and co-editor with Dr. Steve Best of Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals. More about Nocella can be found at http://student.maxwell.syr.edu/ajnocell/index.html

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Dr. Nicola Taylor
Executive Director of ICAS

Dr. Taylor received her undergraduate degree in Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK in 1994 and her PhD. in Sociology from the same university in 1999 where she addressed the sociology of human-animal interaction. She argued that sociology could, and should, take account of human-animal interactions in a thesis entitled “Human-Animal Relations: A Sociological Respecification.” Dr. Taylor then went on to work in the Psychology Department at the University of Edinburgh where she researched farmer attitudes to animal welfare. This was followed by a post at the University of Oxford where Dr Taylor researched a number of issues pertinent to gender and health, and continued to research the links between problematic parenting, domestic violence and companion animal abuse. Dr. Taylor has recently taken up a post at Central Queensland University where she is a sociology lecturer and continues to research animal rights activism and philosophy, and links between domestic and family violence, child abuse and harm to animals. Dr. Taylor has published a number of articles concerning human-animal interaction, parenting, domestic violence and harm to companion animals and has been highlighting the importance of studying these areas to sociologists, policy makers and practitioners alike since 1997.