Jackson Galaxy
Jackson Galaxy is a partner and will be giving the keynote at the inaugural Cat Camp. He is the host of Animal Planet's My Cat From Hell and two-time New York Times best-selling author with 20+ years of experience helping humans understand cats and helping cats find their mojo.
Learn more about Jackson Galaxy or his non-profit, Jackson Galaxy Foundation.
Hannah Shaw aka Kitten Lady
Hannah Shaw is founder of the rescue and advocacy project, Kitten Lady. Shaw is known for her inspiring and educational videos, photos, and resources about how to save the lives of kittens. She has rescued hundreds of orphans, and trains shelters and individuals around the world about innovative approaches to animal protection. Shaw's personal mission is to create a global change in the way we perceive and treat animals--especially the tiniest felines--orphaned kittens.
Andrew Marttila
Andrew Marttilla is professional animal photographer best known for his captivating images of felines. He reaches hundreds of thousands of cat lovers through social media where he documents his travels promoting shelters across the country, taking photos for clients, and snuggling his cat, Haroun. Andrew's photography has been featured in Catster, Vanity Fair, Real Simple, and The Guardian, and on CNN and MSNBC, among others. Andrew is the photographer behind Shop Cats of New York and upcoming book Cats on Catnip. He lives in Washington, D.C.
BUB
BUB is a very special, one of a kind critter. Discovered as the runt of a healthy feral litter in a tool shed in rural Indiana, she was taken in as a rescue when it was clear that she would require special care. Since then, BUB has overcome great challenges, is a published author, a talk show host, a movie star, a chart topping recording artist, and has helped raise well over $500,000 for animals in need.
*Please note that 100% of the proceeds from her meet & greet will be donated.
Adam myatt aka the cat man of west oakland
Adam Myatt is not your normal crazy cat lady. What started as a simple photography hobby featuring his community's feral 'Hoodcats,' quickly turned into a life changing journey which lead to helping co-found the first permanent cat cafe in the USA. Before opening the Cat Town Cafe and Adoption Center, Myatt took an inspirational trip to Japan to see cat cafes in action, and visit two of the feral cat islands. Then in the fall of 2016, he embarked on the #CatManAcrossAmeowica road trip, where he visted more than a dozen open cat cafe's across North America. Learn more at www.catmanwestoakland.com and follow along on Instagram.com/catmanofwestoakland
Nikki Martinez
Nikki Martinez works in animal welfare and rescue in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is the foster mom behind @myfosterkittens on Instagram and the founder of Fostering a Purpose (a company with the purpose of giving back to animal welfare organizations). Nikki has fostered hundreds of cats and kittens and specializes in critical care and neonatal kittens. She is active in TNR (trap-neuter-return) in an effort to reduce the feral cat population and is committed to teaching and guiding others to do the same in their community.
Ingrid King
Ingrid King is the award winning author of five cat books, including Buckley's Story: Lessons from a Feline Master Teacher, Purrs of Wisdom: Enlightenment, Feline Style, Tortitude: The BIG Book of Cats with a BIG attitude, and Adventures in Veterinary Medicine: What Working in Veterinary Hospitals Taught Me About Life, Love and Myself. She is a former veterinary hospital manager. Her popular blog, The Conscious Cat, is a comprehensive resource for conscious living health, and happiness for cats and their humans. The Conscious Cat has won multiple awards, including DogTime Media's Pettie for Best Pet Blog in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014, and About.com's 2012 Reader's Choice Award for Best Website About Cats. Ingrid lives in North Virginia with her tortoiseshell cats Allegra and Ruby. For more information about Ingrid, please visit www.ConsciousCat.com.
Beth Adelman
Beth Adelman, MS, is a cat behavior consultant in New York City. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and three well-trained cats. She is on the Cat Committee of the Pet Professional Guild, and is the former editor of Cats magazine and DogWorld and former cat columnist for the New York Post. Beth has worked as a writer and a speaker for the Winn Feline FOundation. She has also been a speaker at New York's Meow Parlour, the Cat Writers Association, the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, Kuztown University, Pet Sitters International, the Garden State Cat Club and the Cat Fanciers Association, and a guest on a variety of radio shows.
Sterling Davis aka TrapKing
With TNR (Trap Neuter Return) as the focus, Sterling "TrapKing" Davis, out of Atlanta is a man on a mission to change stereotypes in animal rescue, especially when it comes to cats. For so long, cats and TNR has been looked at as a job for older single ladies as not a lot of men and especially black men have been involved. The mission of the TrapKing Humane Cat Solutions nonprofit is to bridge the communication gap between animal rescue and the African American Community and let fellas know that "you don't lose cool points for compassion." The more awareness and support of TNR across all demographics equals more help for our community pets.
Mikel Delgado
Mikel Delgado has been helping humans understand cats for almost twenty years. She is the co-owner of the cat behavior consulting business Feline Minds, and previously worked as a cat behavior specialist at the SF/SPCA. She is especially passionate about improving cats' lives through play and enrichment!
Mikel received her PhD from UC Berkeley, where she studied animal behavior and the human-animal relationship. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis, researching the social and developmental behavior of cats. Mikel is co-author with Jackson Galaxy of the recent book "Total Cat Mojo," and she blogs about cats and science at catsandsquirrels.com.
Will Zweigart
Will Zweigart is the founder of Flatbush Cats, an all volunteer TNR group working to reduce the feral and homeless cat population in Brooklyn and beyond. He's focused on inspiring and empowering more people to support local rescue efforts through TNR, fostering, and colony management.
Lee Domaszowec
A true born and raised New Yorker, Lee Domaszowec founded PhoenixFireSC after working in the animal welfare, non profit, and operations world for many years. The goal of PhoenixFire is to help passionate people change the world, faster.
Lee brings a unique perspective to animal welfare, having extensive experience in both the for profit and non profit worlds. He has traveled extensively across the country visiting dozens of shelters, participated in many large scale adoption events, and worked with countless rescues. As a development professional, Lee is an expert in acquiring and managing the funding necessary for our lifesaving work. He is personally passionate about animal welfare and still fosters and volunteers with a number of organizations.
Jennifer Leon
As Big Cat Rescue's Director of Outreach, Jennifer manages the sanctuary's education programs, advocacy campaigns, legislation & policy initiatives, and community outreach activities - all of which seek to raise awareness about the plight of captive big cats.
Big Cat Rescue, one of the world's largest accredited sanctuaries for exotic cats, is a leading advocate for ending the abuse of captive big cats and saving wild cats from extinction. Located on 67 acres in Tampa, Florida, the sanctuary is home to 80+ cats of 12 different species including lions, tigers, bobcats, cougars, servals, jaguars, and others most of whom have been abandoned, abused, orpharned, saved from being turned into fur coats, or retired from performing acts.
Kathleen O'Malley
The NYC Feral Cat Initiative (NYCFCI), a program of the private nonprofit Alliance for NYC’s Animals, supports the efforts of organizations and individuals who work to help stray and feral cats — collectively known as “community cats” — and perform Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). Our goal is to humanely reduce the population of community cats. TNR, which includes ongoing care of community cats, is the most humane and effective approach to reducing their population and ensuring good quality of life. Most community cats are not socialized to humans and are not suited for adoption, but they can live long and healthy lives in their outdoor home. Anyone who cares about community cats can get involved in helping them, and the NYCFCI will show you how.
Dr. Carly Bloom, DVM, DACVIM (SAIM)
Dr. Carly Bloom has been at the Animal Medical Center since July 2013, and is a full-time member of their Internal Medicine Service. Prior to joining AMC, Dr. Bloom held the position of Clinical Senior Lecturer, Companion Animal Medicine, at the University of Queensland School of Veterinary Science in Brisbane, Australia. She also served as the hospital director at the University's Small Animal Teaching Hospital. She is interested in all aspects of internal medicine as well as clinical teaching, and has a passion for researching and managing kidney and lower urinary tract problems, diabetes mellitus, and other diseases. In addition, Dr. Bloom has authored numerous journal articles and chapters for textbooks. She received her undergraduate and Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine degrees from Cornell University before going on to complete her internship and Small Animal Internal Medicine residency at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.
Chris Poole
Chris Poole has been creating cat videos for over a decade meow and he's dad to celebri-cats Cole and Marmalade.
He began his journey as a Media Producer at Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, FL, where he helped educate the public about the issues exotic cats are facing in captivity and in the wild. Then in 2012 he started making videos featuring smaller felines to entertain people and also to inspire them to make a difference. You can watch his videos at coleandmarmalade.com.
Latonya "Sassee" Walker
Sassee is from the Brownsville area in Brooklyn, NY. She currently resides in one of the NYCHA's buildings in Canarsie. She has loved animals all of her life, especially cats- she's always had them growing up and they lived until 17/18 years of age. She is now a regular trapper and she practices TNR in the rougher neighborhoods in Brooklyn. After seeing the cats outside, she decided to "walk the talk." She is proud to say that she changes a life almost every day and she does TNR for a lot of elderly feeders, people with no money, homeless shelters, nursing homes, etc. Not a week goes by where she does not trap. She is one of the featured stories on The Cat Rescuers - a Documentary Film.
Jessica Vaccaro
As Animal Care Center of NYC's Senior Manager of Placement, Jessica Vaccaro has helped to create and spearhead numerous lifesaving programs that helped drive NYC to a placement rate of 92.3%. From redesigning adoption programming to be more open and client friendly to leaving no kitten behind with 100% neonate placement in 2017, Jessica has been consistently on the front lines of animal welfare. Prior to working for ACC, Jessica was the Adoption and Intake manager at Anjellicle Cats Rescue.
ACC's mission is short but powerful. "We are looking to end animal homelessness in NYC. As the only open admissions shelter in NYC, ACC never turns away any animal in need and through a community of adopters, fosters, rescue partners, advocates, donors, and volunteers, we become closer to reaching our goal every day."
Tamar Arslanian
Tamar Arslanian is an award winning writer and the founder of IHaveCat.com, a blog working to dispel cat lady stereotypes. She is the author of Shop Cats of New York, and writes for outlets such as Catster, The Huffington Post and People Pets. Find her on Instagram and Facebook at @ihavecat and @shopcatsofnewyork. Tamar resides in New York City with her two rescue cats, Kip and Haddie.