S8E7: Social Media with Laura Fernández, Amanda Weiss, and Siobhan Speiran

Laura Fernández is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Barcelona, where she is part of the Centre for Research in Information, Communication and Culture (CRICC-UB). She holds a BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology, MA in International Studies on Media, Power and Difference and a PhD in Communication. Her work has focused on critical animal studies, strategic visual communication, social movements, feminist and LGBTIQ+ communication studies and fat studies. She is a member of the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics and EACAS (European Association for Critical Animal Studies). www.laurafernandez.org

Amanda Weiss is Associate Professor of Japanese at Georgia Institute of Technology, where she teaches courses on Japanese media and society. She also runs a VIP or Vertically Integrated Project, East Asian Media, with student projects that have included archival work, translation, photography, and media analysis. Her book, Han Heroes and Yamato Warriors: Competing Masculinities in Chinese and Japanese War Cinema (Hong Kong University Press, 2023), explores contemporary East Asian remembrance of WWII. She is currently working on a Japanese-language textbook on Anime Studies and a collected volume on Japanese futurism.

Siobhan Speiran is a wild animal welfare scholar and animal geographer who conducts transdisciplinary research at the intersection of welfare, conservation, and sustainable tourism in Costa Rica, with a focus on primate sanctuaries. She joined York University in 2024 as a postdoctoral visitor, continuing her collaboration with Dr. Alice Hovorka and The Lives of Animals Research Group, through which she completed her Ph.D. in Environmental Studies at Queen’s University. Her doctoral research focused on the lives of monkeys in Costa Rican wildlife sanctuary tourism and was generously funded by a SSHRC Bombardier Doctoral Scholarship. She founded the Costa Rican Monkey Interest Group to connect wildlife researchers, caregivers, and professionals committed to improving monkey lives. Siobhan has published on primate rehabilitation, animal labour, tourism ethics, and the phenomenon of wildlife selfies. She also engages in scientific activism and communication through teaching and her website, theanimalwelfarist.ca, to disseminate her research. Siobhan has contributed as a wildlife expert to multiple podcasts and journalistic outlets, including The New York Times, National Geographic, and the Queen’s Alumni Review.