Meghan always knew that animals would be a part of her career journey ever since she was obsessed with animal documentaries starting at a young age. Through high school, she volunteered at her local BC SPCA branch, where she adopted her cat, Eevie, from. It was only natural for her to continue on with an undergraduate degree studying animals.
Meghan holds a BSc in Applied Animal Biology with a Minor in Psychology from UBC. After focusing on volunteering and leadership for most of her undergrad, Meghan was eager to gain more experience in her field by becoming involved with the AWP.
She first carried out a directed study that looked into the impact of the public comment period on the development of the National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) Codes of Practice at the end of her fourth year. Meghan then applied to the UBC Work Learn program and worked as the AWP Communications and Media Assistant throughout her fifth year at UBC from September 2022 to August 2023, developing skills in podcast editing to even mice welfare research. These opportunities helped her blend her passions in animal welfare with psychology and communications.
During that year, Meghan gained further research experience with the AWP by taking APBI 495 to investigate wildlife coexistence policy. She conducted more social science research in APBI 398 by assisting PhD student Lexis Ly and continued her involvement in the project in another directed study position. She explored how people surrendering an animal utilize assistance to try to keep their pet and presented at the Land and Food Systems Graduate Student Conference and Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference, opening up a whole area of research that she never knew existed previously.
As of September 2023, Meghan had transitioned into the role of AWP Research Coordinator in the interim to oversee administration, communications, and finance duties, and to overall keep the Program running smoothly and feeling like a community! Spending a year with the people and dogs in Room 180 has immersed Meghan in animal welfare research and she aspires to explore doing research of her own in the future.