Alexandra Horowitz, Ph.D.

Alexandra Horowitz, Ph.D. is keen on the mind of the dog. She has long been interested in understanding the umwelt of another animal, and her research and writing is aimed to answer the question of what it is like to be a dog. She has also written about the joys of paying attention to the ordinary (in On Looking); the pleasures of footnotes and the veracity of animal characters in childrens’ books (for The New York Times); and working dogs and show dogs (for The New Yorker).

Horowitz is a professor at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she teaches seminars in canine cognition, creative nonfiction writing, and audio storytelling. As Senior Research Fellow, she heads the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard.

Dr. Horowitz received her BA in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania, and her MS and Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from University of California, San Diego.

She lives with Finnegan (Canis familiaris), Upton (Canis familiaris), Edsel (Felis catus), and two Homo sapiens.