Heather Frigiola is a cultural anthropologist who teaches both cultural and biological anthropology at UNLV and CSN. Her diverse teaching and research interests range from human-animal interaction and multispecies ethnography, to the anthropology of religion, US culture, urban anthropology, environmental anthropology, Indigenous peoples, gender and sexuality, folklore, and human evolution.

In the past, she has co-instructed classes about human-animal interaction at Purdue University and the Evergreen State College. She also volunteers at the Springs Preserve in Las Vegas. In the past, Frigiola has volunteered at the Wolf Park in Battle Ground, IN, and Hidden Oaks Nature Center in Annandale, VA. She is also the author of a non-academic book titled, Monsters and Mythical Creatures Around the World.

Frigiola’s ethnographic fieldwork took place primarily in Texas, where she studied the relationships between therapy dogs and people in a Christian therapy dog organization, or “canine ministry.” This research contextualized the elevated status of the dog in contemporary US society within a Christian ontological framework, specific to evangelical or socially engaged US Protestants. Professional and volunteer ministers and chaplains act as therapists within their own community, not only serving the role of pastoral counselor, but also through a culturally-specific system of faith healing based on the belief that disorder can be cured by bringing people closer to God.  Human members of a canine ministry employ therapy dogs to aid in this faith healing process. She also observed the dogs as co-subjects and community members in their own right, whose unique individual personalities shape their interactive relationships with humans.

Frigiola’s fieldwork has taken her into various spheres of contemporary US society, including the lives of senior citizens in residential retirement facilities, the relationships between police and civilians, homeless people and their pets, and a community’s healing process following a mass shooting.