Join us for a talk and book signing with Dr. Akhtar: Please reserve your free tickets here: http://bit.ly/GreenFareAkhta

Combining medicine and social sciences, Dr. Akhtar will show how deeply the well-being of humans and animals are entwined.

Topics covered include eating animals, animal companionship, animal testing, healing relationships with animals, and interpersonal animal violence. The presentation looks at our relationships with animals as a whole and asks: what do we gain when we recognize our kinship with animals? Stories include: a former mobster who found a new path in life through one animal, an industrial chicken farmer’s divided empathy for animals, a Marine veteran whose PTSD improved with a dog, a cattle rancher who became the first to create an animal sanctuary, the NYPD’s new effort to combat animal cruelty, and a serial killer’s path to animal cruelty.

Through storytelling and science, Dr. Akhtar reveal what happens when we both break and forge bonds with animals. She will demonstrate how humans are neurologically designed to empathize with animals, and how violence against them goes against our nature. In equal measure, the love and friendship we give to other species biologically reverberates back to us.

Her presentation will show how humanity’s compassion for animals is the next step in our species’ moral evolution and a vital component of our own health.

Bio: Aysha Akhtar, M.D., M.P.H., is a neurologist and public health specialist and is on a mission to show that what’s good for animals is also good for humans!

Dr. Akhtar is the author of the new book, Our Symphony With Animals. On Health, Empathy and Our Shared Destinies. Combining medicine, social sciences, and stories, her book explores how deeply the well-being of humans and animals are entwined. The book shows how humanity’s compassion for animals is growing and is the next step in our species’ moral evolution and a vital component of our own health. Profits from the book will go to animal charities.

Dr. Akhtar is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, is Deputy Director of the Army Traumatic Brain Injury Program, and serves as Lieutenant Commander in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Dr. Akhtar has appeared in television shows and interviewed by national media. You can learn more at her website, http://www.ayshaakhtar.com