Interview with Dr. Emily Trunnell, Dr. Katherine Roe, and Dr. Ingrid Taylor

Dr. Emily Trunnell got her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Georgia in 2016. While there, she conducted experiments on mice and rats. After a while, she began to realize that using animals was wrong—for ethical reasons as well as scientific reasons. Today, Dr. Trunnell is a researcher with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA. In addition to doing research, she writes and works with government agencies and other scientists to replace animal experiments with better research methods. She has saved countless animals from experiments that would have starved them, nearly drowned them, and more.    Dr. Katherine Roe is chief of the Science Advancement and Outreach Division with PETA. Katherine has B.S. degrees in biology and psychology and a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of California, San Diego. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, Katherine was a research fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health for eight years. Katherine has studied the neural correlates of language, spatial, and memory processes in humans for 20 years, working with children and adults with brain injuries, schizophrenia, and Williams syndrome. At PETA, Katherine works to replace ineffective experiments on animals and promote modern non-animal research methods. 

 

Dr. Ingrid Taylor is a researcher with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. As a veterinarian, she studies biomedical experiments that use animals and then gives her expert opinion on pain management, the experimental protocol, and other welfare issues. Dr. Taylor meets with government agencies, universities, colleges, and corporations to help them end their use of animals in experimentation. She has sat down with major pharmaceutical companies in Europe to discuss their animal welfare programs, and she has also given PETA advice on numerous cruelty cases. She gave her expert opinion in court on a case involving pigeons and crayfish, and as a result, 25 cruelty charges were filed against a corporation. She also helped get 150 greyhounds released from miserable conditions in a canine blood bank. Before joining PETA, she spent several years as a veterinarian and served in the U.S. Air Force.