Dr. Margo DeMello, assistant professor of anthrozoology, continues to contribute to the field through a range of recent and forthcoming publications that examine human–animal relationships across culture, history, and media.
Among her recent works is Bigfoot to Mothman: A Geographic Encyclopedia of Legendary Beasts and Monsters (Bloomsbury, 2024) , a one-volume reference exploring cryptids from around the world. The book situates both well-known and lesser-known creatures within their cultural, historical, and geographic contexts, treating cryptids not as scientific mysteries to be solved but as cultural artifacts.
Also published in 2024 is her chapter, “Sinister Canines in the Media: Animals in Popular Culture,” included in The Routledge International Handbook on Human Animal Interactions and Anthrozoology.
In 2025, Dr. DeMello co-authored a journal article titled "Interspecies Modes of Relating," for a special issue of Society & Animals.
Several additional publications are forthcoming in 2026. Dr. DeMello’s next book, Pets Around the World: A Cultural Encyclopedia of the Human-Animal Bond (Bloomsbury), will examine human–animal relationships across different cultural contexts.
Her article, “Peter Rabbit: Domesticity, Breeding, and the Contradictions of the Victorian Rabbit,” will appear in Victorian Review.
Another forthcoming chapter, “Wearing the Skin of Another: Human-Animal Shapeshifting in Contemporary Film,” will be published in The Body Swap Film (Berghahn), edited by Wyatt Moss-Wellington and Kim Wilkins.
Dr. DeMello is an internationally recognized figure in anthrozoology and helped establish the field through her work as the first program director of Human-Animal Studies at the Animals & Society Institute. She is the author of the first textbook in the field, Animals and Society: An Introduction to Human-Animal Studies, and the editor of Teaching the Animal: Human-Animal Studies Across the Disciplines. She has published extensively on rabbits and has been involved with the House Rabbit Society for more than thirty years, including fourteen years as president.