Letting animals speak: Increasing animal agency with animal-computer interaction, with Heather Browning

February 7 2025, 17:00 GMT/ 12:00 EST/ 09:00 PST (5pm GMT/ 12 pm EST/ 9am PST)

Letting animals speak: Increasing animal agency with animal-computer interaction

Animals are often surrounded by technologies designed for them (feeding systems, tracking devices, enrichment tools) but rarely by technologies designed to listen to them. Yet animals have preferences, needs, and their own ways of expressing choice, even when they don’t use words. This talk explores how animal–computer interaction can increase animal agency by giving animals new ways to communicate, choose, interact with others, and influence their environments. Dr Heather will show how supporting animal agency through carefully designed technology can be a powerful way to improve animal welfare. 

About the speaker

Heather Browning is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Southampton. She specialises in animal welfare, ethics, and consciousness.

Prior to her current position, she worked as a researcher in animal sentience and welfare at the London School of Economics, as part of the Foundations of Animal Sentience project.

Alongside her academic career, Browning has also worked as a zookeeper and animal welfare officer.