Inside the Coop – Welcome to Our Hen House!

by ben

Jasmin Singer

CO-HOST, CO-FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Writer and activist Jasmin Singer is the author of The VegNews Guide to Being a Fabulous Vegan (Hachette, 2020), the memoir Always Too Much and Never Enough (Berkley—Penguin Books USA, 2016), and the editor of the anthology, Antiracism in Animal Advocacy (Lantern, 2021). She is Editor-at-Large (and former Senior Editor) for VegNews and the VP of Editorial for vegan beauty box, Kinder Beauty. 

In 2016, Jasmin was named by The Advocate as one of “40 Under 40 People to Teach Us About Each Other.” In addition to her work for Our Hen House, which she co-founded in January 2010 with Mariann, Jasmin has written for numerous magazines and digital platforms, including The Huffington Post and Mind Body Green, as well as for anthologies including Voices for Animal Liberation (Skyhorse, 2020), Defiant Daughters: 21 Women on Art, Activism, Animals, and the Sexual Politics of Meat [Lantern, 2013], Running, Eating, Thinking [Lantern, 2014], and Circles of Compassion [Vegan Publishers, 2014]. 

Along with Mariann, Jasmin was the co-host of the Our Hen House TV Show (a co-production with Brooklyn Independent Media) in 2014 and 2015. She has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, HuffPo Live, and can be seen in the documentaries Vegucated (for which she was also the Creative Consultant) and The Ghosts in Our Machine. She was named by VegNews as one of twenty standout stars of the animal rights movement. 

From 2007-2010, Jasmin was the campaigns manager for Farm Sanctuary. Her workshops and book talks have been presented at conferences, universities, law schools, bookstores, and VegFests around the globe, and she presented the Tedx talk, “Compassion Unlocks Identity,” to a live audience of more than two-thousand people. Jasmin has also been featured in media outlets such as Yahoo, CNN, Freakonomics, The Atlantic, and the New York Observer

Prior to her animal activist career, Jasmin was an actor-educator with an AIDS-awareness theatre company. As an actor, she has also performed in (and produced) the show Mortified, and was last seen on stage in the lead role of Exhibit This at the NYC Midtown International Fringe Festival. She has also been seen in films including The Bra Mitzvah and Who Killed Me? Follow Jasmin on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, sign up for her weekly Substack Newsletter, and visit her website at jasminsinger.com.

Mariann Sullivan

Co-host and Co-founder

Mariann Sullivan is a lawyer and teaches animal law at Cornell Law School. She has served as the chair of the American Bar Association’s Tort Trial Insurance Practice Section’s Animal Law Committee and the Committee on Legal Issues Pertaining to Animals of the New York City Bar Association. She is also the 2021 recipient of the American Association of Law Schools’ Excellence in Animal Law: Scholarship-Teaching-Service Award.

In addition to a number of articles about animals and the law she is, with David Wolfson, the author of a trilogy of articles on farmed animals and the law: “Foxes in the Henhouse: Animals Agribusiness and the Law, A Modern American Fable” in Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions; “What’s Good for the Goose… The Supreme Court of Israel, Foie Gras, and the Future of Farmed Animals in the United States,” in the Duke Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems; and “If it Looks Like a Duck: New Jersey, The Regulation of Common Farming Practices, and the Meaning of ‘Humane,’” in Animal Law and the Courts

She has spoken at numerous conferences and animal law related events throughout the country and internationally, has served on the board of directors of Farm Sanctuary and The Animals Agenda, and currently serves on the board of Animal Welfare Trust. She has formerly taught animal law at Lewis & Clark Law School’s Center for Animal Law Studies, NYU Law School, Columbia Law School, Brooklyn Law School, and Cardozo Law School. 

Along with Jasmin, Mariann was the co-host of the Our Hen House TV Show (a co-production with Brooklyn Independent Media) in 2014 and 2015. She is currently the co-host of the award-winning, weekly Our Hen House podcast and the host of the Animal Law Podcast. Email her at mariann [at] ourhenhouse [dot] org.

—The Team—

Vicki Beechler

Director of Operations

A longtime vegan and animal rights activist, Vicki previously worked as Director of Operations for the Animal Rights National Conference where she managed a team nearly 30 people strong as well as a large group of amazing volunteers. In that role, she also worked with vendors and sponsors, implemented efforts to improve operations, organized multiple efforts to make the conference more accessible (including the scholarship fund), and more. In her free time, she loves gardening with native plants, cultivating a more sustainable life, and creating mixed media art from reclaimed and natural materials. A true champion of the maligned, Vicki has quite an affinity for snakes, bats, spiders and bugs! Vicki lives in Philadelphia with more than a hundred house plants, two dogs, two cats, a turtle, and a human.

Jen Riley

Director of Fundrasing

Jen Riley is an animal rights activist through and through. She came to Our Hen House after three years serving as Conference Chair for the Animal Rights National Conference, where she worked to bring a vision of equity and belonging while overseeing the smooth functioning of a movement-wide event. She also activated the Conference’s first Program Advisory Committee to seek proper representation of  issues and better incorporate equity and inclusiveness. 

As Managing Director of Farm Animal Rights Movement for many years, Jen cultivated her fundraising experience, administrative skills, financial management, and team-building. She currently serves as Treasurer on the board of directors of Expanded Circle Collective, a team of passionate activists with skills to share with anyone who’s pushing back against oppressive systems, and has joined the Redefine Your Mind Project to empower young women in juvenile detention facilities to build confidence in making positive life decisions, speaking their minds, and cultivating compassionate choices. 

Jen lives in the historic town of Ellicott City, MD, and enjoys being able to work from home in the good company of her adorable rescued pup, Sheba.

Jocelyn Martinez

Production Assistant

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Jocelyn Martinez (Production Assistant) recently graduated from UCLA, where, during her final year, she learned about factory farming, as well as the detrimental health effects of animal-based products, and their contribution to the climate crisis. She immediately decided that going vegan was the only path towards a healthier, brighter, more compassionate global future. As an undergrad, she devoted herself to La Gente, UCLA’s Latinx newsmagazine, where she documented community stories, worked alongside student journalists, helped foster voices of color, hosted the newsmagazine’s first-ever weekly show on UCLA Radio, and served as editor-in-chief her senior year. When she’s not working with Our Hen House, Jocelyn is an editorial assistant at VegNews Magazine. She enjoys reading, traveling, playing in the ocean, and finding new ways to keep cool, calm, and collected.

Eric Montgomery

Podcast Editor

Eric Montgomery is the founder and Chief Engineer at The Podcast Haven. As a recording professional, Eric spent many years recording Voice Over for TV, Video Games, Commercials, Radio Ad’s and Podcasts. 

To date, he’s worked on hundreds of projects and his work can be heard on The Food Network, Nickelodeon, CNN, The Hallmark Channel, Adult Swim, Comedy Central and other major media networks. 

In 2016, he founded The Podcast Haven, a Full-Service Podcast Production Company. Since then, The Podcast Haven team has edited and produced over 1,200 podcast episodes for small business owners, influencers and reporters. They’ve also recorded, edited and mixed podcasts for Wondery, The Los Angeles Times, PodcastOne and Spotify. 

The goal of The Podcast Haven is to help content creators tell their stories through audio. We take care of your production, so you can focus on creating great content.

Ben Braman

Webmaster "Tech Guy"

Ben Braman is a vegan activist living in Tucson, AZ. At a young age, he became enthralled with computer programming and the early Internet, which inspired a self-taught career in web development. 

Ben’s first vegan advocacy web project, VeganFeed.com, showcases vegan media as it is published. Ben’s latest passion project, VeganJobs.com, has become a popular vegan employment hub. 

In addition to his online advocacy, Ben is an event organizer for the Tucson Vegetarian & Vegan Meetup group, a passionate and growing assemblage of hundreds of members, as well as founder of the Vegan Tucson Meetup and the Newport, RI Vegan Meetup Group. 

Ben has organized and promoted a number of free vegan movie screenings at Tucson’s Loft Cinema, at times maxing out the 500-seat theater with a majority non-vegan audience. Ben has also helped organize vegan speaking events and festivals in Tucson and California. 

In his spare time, Ben enjoys going on adventure trail-runs with his dog, talking to new vegans and the vegan-curious, often pointing them to podcasts, blogs and videos—such as the ones created at Our Hen House. 

Weronika Kolinska

Graphic Design Consulatant

Weronika Kolinska is a vegan artist from Poland, currently based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She has been fascinated with nature and animals for as long as she can remember. 

As a child, she spent days observing the lives of insects and other small creatures in her garden, or watching David Attenborough’s documentaries. After going vegan in 2011, Weronika  got involved in animal rights activism. She worked on outreach campaigns, protests and cooking events. 

She is currently focused on her art, and tries to incorporate the animal rights message into it. She aims to portray animals as individuals, with their own unique character traits. 

Weronika specializes in designing t-shirts and loves working with vegan brands to promote the vegan message and with animal sanctuaries on their fundraising merch. She feels especially lucky to be able to draw sanctuary or rescue animals who live out safe and happy lives thanks to the hard work of their caretakers.

—Board of Directors—

Elisa Camahort Page

Board of DIrectors

Known as the co-founder and COO of scrappy start-up-turned-global women’s media company BlogHer, Inc., Elisa Camahort Page was with BlogHer from its founding, through its venture fundraising, through exit by acquisition, through letting go. Camahort Page now focuses on writing and consulting with entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and organizations that are driven to take their big ideas to the next level. Her debut book, Road Map for Revolutionaries: Resistance, Activism, and Advocacy for All, was published by Ten Speed Press, a Penguin Random House imprint, on September 18, 2018 and became the Amazon #1 New Release in Political Advocacy before publication. Her mantra: Innovation+Empathy>Innovation+Efficiency

Rachel Krantz

Board Member

Rachel Krantz is the Senior Media Strategist at Mercy For Animals and author of Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy. She is the namer of Bustle, and one of its three founding editors. She’s the recipient of the Peabody Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights International Radio Award, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Radio Award, and the Edward R. Murrow Award for her work as an investigative reporter. You can follow her work on Twitter @rachelkrantz.

Erica Nielsen

Board Member

Erica Nielsen is an animal rights activist and real estate investor. From 2015 -2021, she was Director of Philanthropy at Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) where she raised funds for their work to end the use of animals in laboratories and promote vegan diets. Erica previously founded and ran a sales consultancy, selling magazine advertising to Fortune 1000 companies. She hails from New York and resides in Los Angeles.

Jasmin Singer

Co-host and Co-founder