Melanie Joy is a psychologist, professor, author, and personal/relationship coach. She is known for her work transforming disempowering, dysfunctional relationships to empowering, functional ones. Her work addresses relationships at both the macro and micro levels, including:

• humanity’s relationship with animals and the environment
• relationships among social groups
• intimate relationships

Melanie is the author of Strategic Action for Animals and the forthcoming Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism. She has also authored numerous articles on psychology, animal advocacy, and social justice, which have been published in academic and popular journals and magazines. She has been interviewed for magazines, books, and radio on her work, including the prestigious Le Scienze, the Italian edition of Scientific American and National Public Radio.

A professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, Melanie teaches sociology and psychology. She also spent two years on the faculty of the Institute for Humane Education, the first institute in the United States to offer a master’s degree with a concentration in humane education. Her academic areas of specialization include: human-animal relations, the psycho-sociology of violence and nonviolence, psychological trauma, family dynamics, ecopsychology, addictions, and strategic social change. Melanie is also the leading researcher on the ideology of meat production and consumption—a phenomenon she’s termed carnism—and she has presented her research at national and international academic and grassroots conferences.

Melanie also has a personal/relationship coaching practice. She works with individuals to help them clarify and work toward their personal goals. She works as well with individuals who are experiencing difficulties in their intimate relationship, and who want or need to work with a coach on their own rather than with their partner present.

Melanie Joy holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Saybrook Graduate School, a master’s degree (Ed.M.) in teaching and curriculum from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a B.A. from the Harvard University Extension School.