THE TEAM

Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder

Founder, Producer, Host

Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder began the Animal Turn in February 2020 as a culmination of her interests in animals, ethics, and media.

In 2023, Claudia completed her PhD in Geography at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. She examined the historical problematization of cows in Kingston, Ontario and has broad interests in how animal histories and geographies are told. Her scholarly interests sit in the intersection of geography, urban studies, animal studies, history and power relations.

Claudia also has an MSc in the Social Studies of Gender from Lund University in Sweden; as well as an MA in Tourism and Management, a BA(Hons) in Political Science and a BA in Journalism from the University of Johannesburg.

In terms of the airwaves: Claudia was a host on the campus radio station, UJFM. She was also a news reporter intern for Classic FM and the founder and former host of Beyond Canada: International Thought and Scholarship.

Claudia's favourite past times are enjoying her husband's vegan cooking, getting into complex conversations, walking her doggo Linus, cycle-touring, travelling, reading, and watching crappy movies.

You can find Claudia on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne)

Christiaan Mentz

Associate Sound Producer and Editor

Christiaan Mentz joined The Animal Turn team in 2022 (the start of Season 5) as a fellow interested in podcast production and sound. He is now an Associate Sound Producer and Editor for the podcast.

Christiaan has loved music and sound from a young age. His first foray into leaning about music came as piano lessons at the age of 11. In high school he was exposed to rock and metal music and found himself wanting to expand beyond the confines of classical music. After many afternoons air-guitaring to Guns N' Roses and Metallica he finally bought a guitar and learned to play. Music and sound production have been part of his life ever since.

He learned to edit and produce by playing in bands and wanting to make what he calls "passable recordings." Today he lives in Shuzou, China and continues to play and produce music. You can hear some of his work on Band Camp via Sputnik and Travel, Sustained Silent Reading Sir, and Catpiss.

Christiaan continues to expand his sound producing skills through his work with The Animal Turn, helping to make each episode a better experience for listeners.

Rebecca Shen

Assistant Content Producer and Designer

Rebecca Shen joined The Animal Turn team in 2023 (the start of Season 6) as a fellow interested in researching animals in design and podcast production. She is now an Assistant Content Producer and Designer.

Outside the Animal Turn, Rebecca is a landscape designer and researcher. She is inspired by design as pursuits of worldmaking, especially to advance interspecies justice and collectivity during times of challenge. Rebecca graduated with a Master in Landscape Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2023, where she completed her design thesis, Sanctuary State: California’s Cowscape in Transition, which envisions the transformation of an 800-acre industrial “cattle” feedlot into a cow sanctuary, a site for interspecies confrontation, healing, and codesigning. It was right before starting her Master’s thesis when Rebecca delved into the world of animal studies and became an avid listener of The Animal Turn. Through her design work, she explores human-animal relationships in the built environment, ecological restoration, and regenerative food systems.

You can find out more about Rebecca on her website or connect with her via email at beccshen@gmail.com. Rebecca is always interested in collaborating with other scholars, designers, or artists who are passionate about interspecies design.

Fellows

Fellows are volunteers with The Animal Turn Podcast who have an interest in animals, animal studies, and/or podcast production.

Priyanshu Thapliyal

Priya is a PhD Researcher based in the school of GeoSciences at University of Edinburgh. In his project, he is thinking with and for people and street dogs living in an Indian Himalayan village to explore the everyday ethics and politics of sharing life and space on a more-than-human planet. He has an interest in cultural geography, environmental anthropology, and multispecies studies. You may connect with Priya via Twitter @priathaplial

Rashmi Singh Rana

Rashmi is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Compassionate Conservation of the Transdisciplinary School, University of Technology Sydney. Her conservation research explores how the dynamic socio-ecological realities shape coexistence dynamics in the multispecies spaces of the Indian trans-Himalaya. Presently, her research interests lie in tracing the contemporary relationships between humans and dogs, and its influence on the future of safe multispecies cohabitation in agro-pastoral landscapes. You can connect with her via Twitter/X @RashmiSinghRana

Herre de Bondt

Herre de Bondt has done research on rats in Amsterdam, crows in Tokyo, and gulls in The Hague. His work has now brought him to London where his PhD project is concerned with urban bird feeding practices. From hanging up fatballs for chirpy robins to tossing seed to flocks of ‘flying rats’, Herre is determined to investigate the inherently multispecies practice of bird feeding. He is particularly interested in the ways non-human animals inform and shape the contemporary city in collaboration with – and in defiance of – humans. You can connect with Herre via Twitter (@HerreBondt).

Rosa Dyer

Rosa Dyer is a Collaborative Doctoral Project PhD candidate at Birkbeck College University of London and the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Her practice-based project at the Pitt Rivers Museum focuses on featherwork collections made by South American Indigenous peoples. Her work aims to reveal the dynamic relations that exist between birds, people and environments by working with Indigenous collaborators to reimagine how the feathered objects are represented in the museum. You can connect with Rosa via Twitter (@rosajdyer).

Amanda Bunten-Walberg

Amanda (Mandy) Bunten-Walberg (she/ her) is a PhD Candidate at Queen's University's School of Environmental Studies. Her research explores more-than-human ethics in contagious contexts through the case study of bats and COVID-19. In particular, Mandy is interested in how more-than-human ethics, critical race theory, queer theory, and biopolitical theory might guide humans towards developing more ethical relationships with bats and other (human and more-than-human) persons who are dominantly understood as diseased. As a fellow with The Animal Turn, Amada did the Animal Highlights for Season 5: "Animals and Biosecurity".

Virginia Thomas

Virginia Thomas is an environmental social scientist with a PhD in Sociology. She is interested in people’s interactions with their environment and with other animals. Virginia’s work explores the social and ethical questions in human-animal relationships. She is currently a research fellow on the Wellcome Trust funded project ‘From Feed the Birds to Do Not Feed the Animals’ which examines the drivers and consequences of animal feeding. This leads on from her previous research which examined human-animal relations in the media (as part of zoonotic disease framing) and in rewilding projects (in relation to biopolitics and human-animal coexistence). You can connect with Virginia via Twitter (@ArbitrioHumano).

Hannah Hunter

Hannah Hunter (she/ her) is a PhD Candidate at the Sonic Arts of Place Laboratory at Queen's University. Her research explores the intersections of animals, sounds, and extinction through the case study of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Hannah is particularly interested in how we can build relationships with distant and lost beings through sound, and how sound may be a potent force for representing and challenging the sixth mass extinction. As a fellow with The Animal Turn, Hannah did the Animal Highlights for Season 4: "Animals and Sound".

Altamush Saeed

Altamush Saeed is a Pakistani Animal Rights lawyer, philanthropist, and teacher. In Pakistan, he directly develops and oversees the animal welfare projects of the Charity Doings Foundation. These involve installing water projects that provide water to humans and animals, natural disaster animal rescue work, teaching about animal welfare in a specially established disaster zone school in Sindh, and developing a New disaster zone farm animal shelter. He wants to make the world a better place for all life, be it humans, animals, or the environment, and is always looking for more creative ways of being a voice for the voiceless. You can connect with Altamush via Twitter (@AltamushSaeed) and LinkedIn. You can also view his non-profit work at https://charitydoings.org/.