This article is a special contribution by UI undergraduate Rylee Newland, a journalism and mass communication major. She wrote this piece for her Spring 2026 Reporting and Writing class.
The University of Iowa recently became home to the Human-Animal Interactions for Wellbeing Collaborative in the fall of 2025. This collaborative is one of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies’ newest working groups. The collaborative is co-directed by Adrienne Johnson, an associate professor of instruction in the health, sport and human physiology department, and Katy Schroeder, an associate professor in the College of Education.
The Human-Animal Interactions for Wellbeing Collaborative seeks to bridge the gap between academic research and community knowledge surrounding human-animal interactions. The group brings together scholars and advocates from various disciplines, with the ultimate goal of creating a space where discussions around best practices, ethics, and education on animal-assisted interventions can be held.
“A lot of the topics that are coming up are when to retire your dog, or kind of the ethics around how much the dog is working, human welfare with the animal, setting boundaries for the animal, a lot of the advocacy work, and then also, again, going back to the gaps,” Adrienne Johnson said. “What can we help with from the research and teaching side that could then translate to the community members that are doing the work?”
The collaborative was established through the University of Iowa Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. The Obermann Center serves as the main interdisciplinary research center for the University of Iowa, connecting researchers in various fields. The Obermann Center’s working groups act as spaces where scholars and community members can share ideas and develop plans for further research on a topic of interest.
Luis Martín-Estudillo has been the director of the Obermann Center for a year and a half. "The working groups are precisely thought of as something like a seed activity, with seed money, so that they can then develop into something larger if the members so wish,” Martín-Estudillo said.
Currently, the Human-Animal Interactions for Wellbeing Collaborative consists of nine members, with participants’ careers ranging across the fields of education, medicine, and law enforcement. Members bring in perspectives from the University of Iowa College of Education, College of Law, and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, as well as the School of the Wild Program and local organizations outside of the university.
"We’re all doing our own little thing in our own world with AAI [Animal Assisted Interventions], and so we wanted to bring that together to learn from one another, and to help take things forward a little bit more quickly here on campus,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s background lies in therapeutic recreation and animal-assisted interventions, which involves the implementation of animals into therapeutic, educational, or health services to improve human wellbeing. Her therapeutic recreation experience primarily focused on individuals with intellectual disabilities.
Beginning a career at the University of Iowa allowed Johnson to further connect with her facility dog, Drax, who became a part of her work during the pandemic. According to Johnson, Drax has made her a more approachable instructor, led to increased attendance in her classes, and allowed students to find a break in their occasionally repetitive daily schedules.
“Those little moments where he [Drax] just kind of brightens someone’s day or makes them feel better, to me, are just enough to have an animal here,” Johnson said.
For many of the collaborative's members, a lifelong love for animals combined with the integration of animals into their careers led to an interest in the group’s work. Alissa Schuerer, a member of the collaborative, currently works as a detective at the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, with her crisis response K-9, Rudy. Detective Schuerer began the Crisis Response K-9 program at the sheriff’s office three years ago after she noticed the toll that witnessing and experiencing traumatic crimes takes on individuals’ mental health.
"My goal was first responders and dealing with traumatic events and the secondary trauma we deal with, in the critical instances we respond to,” Alissa Schuerer said. “The other goal was victims and witnesses. Giving them a way, an outlet, to cope."
Schuerer learned about the collaborative from Johnson and decided to join due to the initiative’s interdisciplinary approach to animal-assisted interventions. According to Schuerer, joining the collaborative opened doors to new connections and learning opportunities for her within the animal-assisted interventions field.
“Not only would it help the collaborative, but I can also learn something from these other people and other connections within this area that would benefit the whole system,” Schuerer said.
Another source of expertise for the Human-Animal Interactions for Wellbeing Collaborative comes from the University of Iowa Health Care Stead Family Children’s Hospital, through childlife specialists Aly Humphrey and Emily Bradley. Humphrey serves as the primary handler of Corrin, one of the hospital’s facility dogs, and Bradley serves as the primary handler of Nacho, the hospital’s second facility dog.
According to Humphrey and Bradley, the facility dogs help patients achieve specific treatment goals, as well as boost morale for the patients, families, and staff.
“When kids are feeling like they’re coping better, they’re able to meet their goals a little faster, and then, in turn, it really helps the entire treatment team. Whether that’s them discharging earlier or getting a procedure done more quickly or without sedation versus with sedation, there are a lot of benefits,” Humphrey said.
Currently, there is a research project through the University of Iowa Department of Therapeutic Recreation on the ways in which dog-assisted interventions can help decrease stress levels, both physiologically and psychologically. Aside from her involvement in the Human-Animal Interactions for Wellbeing Collaborative, Johnson is part of this project, along with the research team consisting of J.J. Chen, an associate professor in the therapeutic recreation department, and undergraduate research assistants Lily Arnold and Alea Wolfe. This project also utilizes Johnson’s facility dog, Drax, for participant interactions and data collection.
“We track heart rate and blood pressure and brain waves pre- and post-intervention, and we also have them [research participants] do a qualitative written portion where they kind of say how they were feeling for the day,” Arnold said.
According to Chen, the main goal of the ongoing research project is to apply the statistics gathered through the monitoring process toward improving the mental wellbeing of students on campus.
“Most people on campus, they have no idea that we have a therapy dog. We have office hours for Drax. We want to see how students interact with Drax and how they can help manage their stress, because right now college students, so many of them, they have mental health issues,” Chen said.
For the future of the collaborative, Johnson hopes that it will continue to expand outside of its current membership, as well as outside of the University of Iowa campus and the Iowa City community, to connect with as many resources as possible to increase education surrounding human-animal interactions.
There are several organizations in Iowa that incorporate animal-assisted interventions and human-animal interactions into their work. For example, Miracles in Motion is a therapeutic equestrian center located in Swisher, Iowa. The center focuses on providing horses that are trained to assist in therapeutic interventions for individuals with a wide range of disabilities.
Diana Harris is an instructor at Miracles in Motion. “We provide the horses, the side walkers, the horse leads, and an instructor to make sure everyone is safe and the horses are happy. We also teach lessons to anybody who has any kind of disability. It doesn’t have to be physical; it can be psychological [or] social, and we teach people how to ride to the best of their ability,” Harris said.
Johnson’s end goal for the Human-Animal Interactions for Wellbeing Collaborative is to implement actionable steps toward creating a community that is educated on animal-assisted interventions and excited about the impact these interventions make.
“We want to be collecting evidence that supports the work that we’re doing, so that not only it justifies what we’re currently doing, but that this can grow a little bit more on campus so that we do have more people to connect with, and so that the impact the animals are making spreads a little bit further,” Johnson said.