Lauren Powell, assistant professor of animal welfare and behavior, researches the science behind the benefits and challenges of pet ownership.
2 min. read
Lauren Powell studies one of the most familiar yet surprisingly complex relationships in our lives: the bond between people and their companion animals. As assistant professor of animal welfare and behavior at Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine, her research explores how human-animal relationships influence both pet welfare and human wellbeing, with a particular focus on the role of socioeconomic and environmental factors.
Assistant professor of animal welfare and behavior Lauren Powell and pup Pippa.
From leading one of the nation’s largest studies of shelter pet adoptions to developing innovative tools that improve the quality of life for animals and their families, Powell is helping build the scientific evidence behind the benefits and challenges of pet ownership.
“Much of my work focuses on better understanding when and how human-animal relationships can benefit both animal welfare and human wellbeing,” Powell says. “I’m particularly interested in understanding the ways socioeconomic and environmental factors can affect pets and their owners.”
Powell’s flagship project is a nationwide study on the impacts of cat and dog adoptions on human and animal wellbeing, the largest of its kind. “We’re working hard to include adopters from many communities to ensure we represent the experiences of people from diverse backgrounds and their animals. Ultimately, we hope the data will illustrate the power of the human-animal bonds to improve human mental wellbeing and help shelters better support adopters and their pets, thereby promoting long-lasting adoptions.”
“I wish more people recognized why it’s so important to study human-animal relationships and how challenging that can be,” Powell adds. “Each relationship is inherently unique, and accounting for that variation can be difficult.”
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