Dr. Rochelle Stevenson is an Associate Professor (Criminology) in the Department of Environment, Culture, and Society at Thompson Rivers University, co-chair of CSA’s Animals in Society research cluster, and faculty member with the Animal and Interpersonal Abuse Research Group (AIPARG). She lives in Kamloops on the lands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc within Secwépemc’ulucw, the traditional and unceded territory of the Secwépemc peoples. She is a proud parent to a wonderful Standard Poodle, and two adorable cats.
At the core of Rochelle’s research is the human-animal relationship. Her research has highlighted the importance of this connection in myriad spaces, from work validating grief after the loss of a companion animal, to research on attempts to change animal cruelty provisions in the Criminal Code. Rochelle’s recent research sits at the intersection of interpersonal violence and violence against animals. She has examined the avenues available to women who want to leave an abusive relationship but do not want to leave their companion animal in a situation of potential harm, to, together with AIPARG colleagues, national surveys of both residents of domestic violence shelters and shelter staff on the issue of animal abuse and mistreatment. Her research projects have also approached the issue of interpersonal violence and animal mistreatment from a different perspective: that of men who had committed abuse against their partner and who had companion animals in the home.
Rochelle maintains an intersectional and anti-oppression foundation in her research and activism with two overarching goals: naming, understanding, and stopping violence in any form, and advocating for social justice via the inclusion of animals in social policy.