Speaker bio page for Jo Williams

Bio

Jo Williams is Professor of Applied Developmental Psychology, in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. She leads ‘Children, Adolescent and Animals Research’ (caar) and is Director of the Centre for Applied Developmental Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on child and adolescent mental health, children’s interactions with animals, cruelty prevention, and One Welfare. She works closely with animal welfare charities, including the Scottish SPCA, to investigate psychological risk and protective factors for childhood animal harm and how we can prevent it through educational interventions. She is also interested in animal-assisted interventions for child and young people’s mental health and the impact of pets on development and health. She is a Board Member of the International Society of Anthrozoology, is part of the Mental Health Working Group for the Society for Companion Animal Studies, sits on the Board of Trustees of Fostering Compassion, and is a member of a range of cross-discipline, cross-sector working groups to support human-animal relationships.