Search & Rescue Director
gaalaas@upenn.edu
Dr. Emma Gaalaas Mullaney is the Director of the Detection, Search and Rescue Program of the Penn Vet Working Dogs Center. At the WDC, her focus is advancing our efforts in fields of search and rescue, scent detection dog training, and puppy development. She and her canine partner, Toby, deploy as a K9 Search Team on missing persons searches, specializing in large area live find and recently deceased human remains. Emma is certified SARTECH II with the National Association for Search & Rescue (NASAR), and together she and Toby are actively certified in: Area/HRD Awareness Search with the National Search Dog Alliance (NSDA); Shoreline and Open Water Search with the International Police Working Dog Alliance (IPWDA); and Wilderness Air Scent Search with Michigan Search and Rescue (MISAR).
In addition to her experience as a canine trainer and handler, Dr. Gaalaas Mullaney contributes her scientific background to the WDC’s cutting-edge canine olfaction research and education programs. Her dual-PhD is in Geography and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the Pennsylvania State University. Through her research, scholarship, and teaching, she connects innovative, interdisciplinary science to our everyday lives, particularly those of us who work with the land and with animals.
Since 2010, Dr. Gaalaas Mullaney has served as a Lead Delegate to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and Commission on the Status of Women, and as a Scientific Expert and Contributing Author to UN Environmental Programme Global Environmental Outlook reports. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Society for Women Geographers, the U.S. Institute of International Education Boren Fellowship Program, the Association of American Geographers, and the Conference of Latin American Geographers, among other foundations. She has conducted participatory fieldwork with smallholder farmers and agricultural extension programs in Central Mexico, the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Timor Leste, Uganda, and the state of Pennsylvania. Before joining the PVWDC team, she was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University, where she led a participatory research project integrating ethnography and systems dynamics modeling to better understand and support small-scale farmer livelihoods, agrobiodiversity, and sustainable agriculture in the urban, rural, and tribal landscapes of Michigan.