About

Kristyn Vitale, PhD 

Kristyn (Shreve) Vitale, PhD, is a researcher and educator in the field of Animal Behavior, Welfare, and Human-Animal Interaction. Her main area of work focuses on cat cognition, behavior, and human-cat interactions.

She received her PhD in Animal Science from Oregon State University where her dissertation examined cat social cognition and the influence of kitten training and socialization classes on the human-cat bond. She received a Master’s in Environmental Science from Miami University where her thesis examined social behaviors between free-roaming colony cats. She also served as a Visiting Research Fellow at Kyoto University in Japan where she conducted cross-cultural research into the cat-human bond. 

Her research in the OSU Human-Animal Interaction Lab has been internationally featured in media outlets such as National Geographic, Science Magazine, The Washington Post, PBS, Scientific American, Time, The New York Times, The Times of London, and W Radio Columbia. She is also regularly interviewed by media outlets including Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, PBS, and Reader’s Digest. She has worked with cats for over a decade in a variety of contexts including as a Trap Neuter Return volunteer, shelter worker and adoption counselor, cat trainer, and researcher studying cat behavior.

All photography belongs to Kristyn (unless noted) and was taken throughout her time working with and researching cats.

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ResearchGate Account 
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Contact for Media and Speaking Inquiries: Kristyn Vitale, maueyes.catresearch [at] gmail.com

This material is based upon work supported by the the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. (1314109-DGE). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.