The Animal Highlight

Rebecca Shen is a landscape designer and researcher who explores human-animal relationships in the built environment, ecological restoration, and regenerative food systems. She is inspired by design as pursuits of worldmaking, especially to advance interspecies justice and collectivity during times of challenge. Rebecca graduated with a Master in Landscape Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2023, where she completed her design thesis, Sanctuary State: California’s Cowscape in Transition, which envisions the transformation of an 800-acre industrial “cattle” feedlot into a cow sanctuary, a site for interspecies confrontation, healing, and codesigning. Rebecca joined The Animal Turn team in 2023 as a fellow interested in researching animals in design and podcast production. She is now an Assistant Content Producer and Designer for the podcast.  Rebecca