Geek Week November 13-17, 2021. Presenter Bios

Dr. Melissa Starling Dr. Melissa Starling has a BSc (Hons) in zoology from the Australian National University and was involved in several projects on wild bird behavior before becoming an ecological consultant for a private company. She then worked briefly on frogs for the Australian government before tackling and completing her Ph.D in dog behavior, emotion and cognition in 2013. She continues to study dog behavior for a living, focusing on applied behavior of working dogs.

Dr. Starling loves to write and has written popular articles for The Conversation and coauthored a book – Making Dogs Happy. She also manages to find time for her animal behavior consulting business, Creature Teacher, on the side. Sometimes. She has worked in a highvolume board and train facility and is at her happiest when geeking out on peculiar behavior cases, or applying herself to near impossible research challenges. Animal behavior was her first and most enduring love and she has been working in this field for over 10 years now.

Grisha Stewart Grisha Stewart is an award-winning dog trainer, author, international speaker, and online dog school facilitator based in Oregon, USA, who specializes in dog reactivity and canine empowerment. She has been training dogs and their humans professionally since 2003.

Her seminal book Behavior Adjustment Training: BAT for Aggression, Reactivity, and Fear in Dogs was published in late 2011. Her second book The Official Ahimsa Dog Training Manual: A Practical, Force-Free Guide to Problem Solving & Manners was published in 2012 and updated in 2014. She also has over a dozen DVDs, with six currently in print. Her third book BAT 2.0 was released in early 2016.

Grisha is an enthusiastic presenter who creates her seminars to accommodate a variety of learning styles. She presents dog training and behavior seminars around the world and lessons online. There are over 70 different courses in her online dog training school, with more coming every few weeks from a variety of instructors, including Grisha.