ABOUT
US
Imagine never finding a lost or abandoned animal, or never bearing witness to the abuse or mistreatment of an animal. Think about a world where humans are not using animals for personal gain. Consider what could be if an entire generation of children grew up never knowing a zoo? Imagine this...
OUR
MISSION
To elevate the state of care, well-being, and acceptance of domestic companion animals and livestock in the Middle East and North Africa.
OUR
VISSION
Katie and the Animals sees a future where the Middle East and North Africa is a place of kindness, compassion, safety and welfare towards animals.
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MEET
KATIE
Katie Izenour was a Fulbright Student Research Fellow at Cairo University’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in 2019-2020 performing her PhD dissertation data collection and analysis when the idea for Katie and the animals was born. Katie has always loved animals, has rescued a number of strays over the years, even bringing animals home to the United States from Egypt, but she never pursued Veterinary Medicine as a profession knowing how hard animal abuse, neglect and the challenge of companion animal overpopulation in the United States. Instead, she became an infectious disease epidemiologist, mostly focusing on human infectious diseases. She worked for ten years as a government consultant for all the major federal health agencies performing data analysis, program evaluation, tabletop exercises of outbreak scenarios, user coaching and really anything else an epidemiologist can do!
But it was the human-animal disease interface that really interested her, not just the mechanics of a spillover event, but most importantly how the health and wellbeing of the animal host can impact the likelihood of a spillover event occurring. In 2018, Katie decided to leave her career behind and pursue a PhD at Auburn University. For her PhD dissertation, she decided she wanted to study vector-borne blood pathogens with zoonotic potential of domestic animals and to do this work in Egypt.
The decision for this direction was numerous, but it mostly came down to Katie’s realization that public health and research dollars typically aren’t directed to the Middle East and North Africa the way they are other parts of Africa or even other parts of the developing world.
Katie is hoping that by pursuing her PhD in Egypt, publishing her work, attending conferences and continuing to engage in dialogue about the importance of animal care and welfare as a mechanism to promote human care and welfare she is providing an opportunity for her Egyptian collaborators to receive recognition and exposure for their work and for traditionally Western focused research institutions to learn more about needs and opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa. Katie and the Animals is an information and resource repository to provide information, training and education in both English and Arabic for animal owners, veterinarians, and shelters. Elevating the health, wellbeing, safety and acceptance of animals in all Middle Eastern and North African communities will also elevate the well-being, health and safety of the humans who live with and around them.
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PUBLICATIONS & PROFESSIONAL ENGAGEMENT
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