Laura Fernández holds a PhD in Communication from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, 2021). She holds a BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2016) and completed a Master's degree in International Studies on Media, Power and Difference (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2017). Her doctoral thesis, entitled "Images that liberate. Moral shock and strategic visual communication in animal liberation activism", offers a thorough qualitative analysis of the reception and use of visual communication strategies within the animal advocacy movement in Denmark, Sweden and Spain. The thesis confirms the effectiveness of graphic violence and the experience of “moral shock” for the animal liberation social movement’s communication purposes. Laura conducts research on a variety of topics, prioritising critical perspectives and an interest in systems of inequality and oppression. Her work has focused on critical animal studies, strategic visual communication, social movements, and feminist studies of the body. She has worked as a lecturer and researcher at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) and she is currently part of the research team of the COMPASS project (Lobbying and Compassion. Interest groups, discourse and nonhuman animals in Spain) at the UPF. In July 2022, Laura obtained a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral fellowship to work at the Universitat de Barcelona with the Centre of Research in Information, Communication and Culture (CRICC). She is the author of more than ten academic publications and the book Hacia mundos más animales, published by Ochodoscuatro (Madrid, 2018) and Madreselva (Buenos Aires, 2019).