Latest news

Person-Post: Dr Akisha Townsend, JD – Fellow

9th July 2008

is Senior Policy and Legal Resource Adviser to World Animal Net, where she also serves as the organization’s  main representative at the United Nations.  An independent legislative consultant in the field of animal protection, she formerly served as Assistant Legislative Counsel to the Humane Society of the United States and Animal Welfare Fellow in the United States Senate (office of Senator Mary Landrieu, D-LA). Townsend received her Juris Doctorate from Georgetown Law and her Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University with distinction.  She currently serves as Diversity Subcommittee Chair of the Animal Law Committee within the American Bar Association’s Tort, Trial, and Insurance Practice Section, as was a former Student Vice- Chair of the same committee. Active in her faith community and interested in the extension of compassionate stewardship toward animals within ecology, she is a member of a local faith-based integrity of creation committee, and was named a 2012 Young Adult Eco-Justice Fellow by the National Council of Churches. Townsend formerly served as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Animal Law at Michigan State University College of Law, and her research has been published in the Journal of Animal Ethics, and The Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics (forthcoming).