Emily Knickerbocker is Director of People and Animals Living Safely (PALS) at Urban Resource Institute (URI), the nation’s largest provider of domestic violence shelter services. She leads the continued development of URI’s pet-inclusive programming, working to advance solutions that recognize the role pets play in survivors’ lives and safety.

Emily’s career sits at the intersection of animal welfare policy, human services, and social justice, including prior roles as a Legislative Fellow for New York State Senator Samra Brouk, the first-ever Graduate Intern at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Animal Welfare, and government relations work at the ASPCA. She holds an M.A. in Animal Studies from NYU, where her graduate research focused directly on URI’s PALS model, and a B.S. in Animal and Biological Sciences from the University of Vermont. In August 2026, she presented her paper on pet-inclusive domestic violence shelters at the University of Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics Summer School.