The Iowa State Graduate College chose Andria Pooley as the Midwestern Association of Graduate School’s Thesis Award nominee.

Andria Pooley is currently a Ph.D. graduate student at Iowa State. She graduated in 2012 from Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with two degrees in history and political science.

Iowa State’s graduate program is one of the few programs in the country that offers a program in agricultural history, which is the reason Pooley chose to come to Iowa State for her graduate studies.

Pooley’s thesis, chosen for nomination from all graduate theses throughout the ISU graduate program, is “Habitats of Mercy: Iowa Farm Animal Welfare, 1900-1945.”

“The thing about history is that animals are conspicuously absent from history in terms of them being [thought] of as animate actors,” Pooley said.

The thesis focuses on farm animal welfare in the first half of the 20th century, Pooley said.

Pooley adopted an interdisciplinary study approach to the thesis. She studied animal science, veterinary science and animal welfare science to expand the information.

“There actually is a bidirectional relationship here, and so I’m putting animals back into history as historical actors,” Pooley said.

Pooley has been to multiple conferences across the midwest to present her findings with her thesis research.

Pooley has participated in the Northern Great Plains History Conference for the past two years, the Agricultural History Conference and been to Loyola University’s History Conference in Chicago.

At conferences, Pooley has presented her specific findings on farmers and their relationships with horses in the first half of the 20th century.

“It cannot be boiled down to economic terms; it actually has to be understood in terms of human-animal bonds,” Pooley said.

Pooley said her work has been very well-received. Animal agency is a key topic that has taken on noted attention.

“It was really cool [being nominated], especially being in the humanities department. Technology and science tend to dominate those kinds of things, so I was really excited for it to be in the humanities,” Pooley said.

Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, chairwoman of the department of history and one of Pooley’s professors, said the graduate history department nominated Pooley’s thesis to represent the department.

“Andria is a really creative scholar and has done really innovative work in bringing together both history and animal science,” Riney-Kehrberg said. “We though that was particularly innovative, and she is also a very good writer, and so it is the kind of piece that would appeal to a lot of different people that do not just have to be [a] historian to like what she’s done.”

Pooley is not only a history graduate student, she is also a horse trainer and competes in equestrian events. This creates a natural connection between the two different parts in her life, Riney-Kehrberg said.

Pooley will be starting a dissertation phase in the fall and would like her dissertation to become a book soon after. She would also like to teach at a university.

The U.K. and France are more advanced and at the forefront of animal welfare reform, Pooley said, so she plans to travel overseas to related conferences.

Pooley will also accept a $500 award from Iowa State for the thesis work that she has done. The thesis was submitted to the Regional competition for the chance of receiving added awards.