Our work explores the wide-ranging ways humans live with other species. We’re studying the significance of these human-animal interactions to improve our understanding of human health and disease.
We consume animals, use them in farming and transport, train them for security and assistance, and keep them for companionship and exercise. The diversity of these interactions and the broad range of academic disciplines in which they fall means that researching other species in the environment that determines human health has been neglected until now.
Our research in human-animal interactions aims to:
We tend to think of ourselves as living quite separately from animals. However, throughout history we’ve not only coexisted alongside other species, but depended on them for our own health and wellbeing. Our work expands the traditional model of human health to encompass our interactions with other species and explore the effects these have on our health.
Our collaborative approach will help to solve a range of problems, from conservation of endangered species to optimising diets for healthy ageing and addressing human obesity and cardiovascular disease. We’ll also train our current generation of students to embrace cross-disciplinary research.
Internal collaborators
External collaborators