Paul Waldau

Dr. Waldau's engaging lectures push each of us to come to terms with our own personal views, especially our ecological and ethical conceptions of "animals" and "the natural world."

Dr. Waldau is Assistant Clinical Professor at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, where he is on the faculty of the Center for Animals and Public Policy. He is also an adjunct professor at Boston College Law School and Tufts University's undergraduate campus (in the Comparative Religion department). In Spring 2002 he taught Harvard Law School's "Animal Law" course, and in Spring 2003 was co-director of Yale Law School's animal law reading group.

He examines the issue of religion and animals at length in a recently published book from Oxford University Press, The Specter of Speciesism: Buddhist and Christian Views of Animals, and he is also editing Oxford's forthcoming A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion and Ethics.

Dr. Waldau holds a Doctor of Philosophy Degree from Oxford University, as well as an advanced degree from Stanford University in modern religious thought. He is also a graduate of UCLA Law School and an experienced trial lawyer.

As Vice-President of the Great Ape Project-International, Dr. Waldau leads this internationally recognized group in campaigns all over the world to protect free-living and captive chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos. Dr. Waldau is also an advisor to the Great Ape World Heritage Species Project, which seeks United Nations-level protections for these animals, and he is, along with Jane Goodall, one of the eight members of the internationally renown Chimpanzee Collaboratory.

Dr. Waldau is uniquely qualified to answer questions regarding the roles that religion, science, and law will inevitably play in our future engagement with the earth. Dr. Waldau speaks in an understandable way about these dauntingly complex issues. Further, during lecture engagements, Dr. Waldau allocates as much time as possible to the question and answer period, since this is often the time when the nuances and subtleties of these rich and difficult subjects can addressed most personally.