Samantha Baugus, Ph.D., serves as the copyeditor for both the International Journal of Cults, Abuse and Manipulation and ICSA Today. Her scholarship is in critical animal studies across media and genres, including film, video games, and fiction. She has published articles in the Journal of Critical Animal Studies, Board Game Academics, and Comparative American Studies that dismantle human exceptionalism and argue for a broader definition of personhood. Her work on anthropomorphism as a narrative mode, including a recent publication in Animation Studies, informs her approach to nonhuman representation in speculative fiction and media. She currently has a book under contract with the University of Mississippi Press examining the intersection of monster studies and animal studies through a posthuman lens. She lives in Missouri with her spouse and four cats.