I’m Sabrina Aeluro and I’m a lifelong cat and wildlife lover – two interests that some people consider to be at war with one another. I spent a decade passionately working to help fill a gap where the animal welfare world is lacking: long-term, high-rigor field studies of spay/neuter programs. My goal was to be part of collaborations to find the most effective ways of reducing cat overpopulation using non-lethal, cat-friendly methods.

To learn how to do all of this, I earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Washington in Seattle in 2018 where I majored in Biology and completed minors in Microbiology and Environmental Science & Resource Management. In 2019, I completed an Applied Animal Behavior Certificate at the UW, and in 2020, a Graduate Certificate in One Health at the UW. I’ve also taken graduate-level coursework in ecology and statistics.

Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain funding to keep working on my research. I’m currently recovering from the burnout inherent to underpaid and unappreciated animal welfare work. I hope to someday find more data-driven animal welfare research projects to join.

I’m a former clinic and foster volunteer at Seattle Humane, and a volunteer veterinary assistant at the Feral Cat Spay/Neuter Project. I volunteered on two trips to Kauai with the island-focused spay/neuter group Animal Balance. I was a volunteer in 2018 and 2019 for the Hayden Island Project, which uses road-based transect surveys to track free-roaming cats in Portland, Oregon.

I’ve done a lot of international travel (40 countries and counting!) focused on seeing the most amazing animals in the disappearing wild. During some of these trips, I have volunteered with or visited animal shelters, spay/neuter projects, and veterinary clinics in Ghana, Egypt, Guatemala, Fiji, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. I love learning how people across the world are meeting challenges and working to help animals on limited budgets and in cultural contexts that are different from my own.

I also enjoy vegan cooking, gardening, photography, scuba diving, and my two special needs cats (Fig and Lychee) who are more popular and adorable than me.