Ellen Dent
Executive Director of the 501c3 Nonprofit Animal Alliance Network
Advocate for Children and Animal Rights

Ellen Dent was born in Princeton, New Jersey May 10, 1984 to parents with extensive backgrounds in linguistics. Her father and mother both attended Arizona State University, where they met and completed their bachelor’s degrees. Later her father received his master’s degree from Princeton University. Her mother received her master’s degree from Trenton State University. Ellen resided in Princeton until the age of four when her family relocated to Kent, Ohio, after her father accepted a position at Kent State University as a German professor. She lived there until the age of ten, when she and her family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Later, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with concentrations in Business and Spanish from Arizona State University. In 2011, at the age of she was 27, she relocated to Los Angeles, California where she currently resides.

In the past, Ellen has worked as the Director of Business Development for T.C. Mosby Investments, LLC where she helped in the formation of a restaurant brand and an HMO. She also has a background in property management with two property management companies. She is currently working as a sales manager for an online sales and consignment company. She also educates people about animals, advocates and cares for them part-time at a privately-owned zoo that she began working for before she transitioned to veganism.

Ellen has always loved animals and has been vegetarian on and off for most of her life. She transitioned a vegan lifestyle two years ago after moving in with a longtime vegan roommate. This was the push she needed to try veganism and she knew right away this was the transition she needed. Currently, she is making efforts to raise awareness through activism to encourage others to have compassion for all living things. Ellen co-founded the nonprofit Animal Alliance Network (AAN) in January of 2018, and in May 2018, AAN received its 501c3 status. Recently, she accepted a position writing for Jane Velez-Mitchell on her website Janeunchained.com, which allows her to express her passion for animal rights on a bigger platform.

She has also been volunteering for the past three years with Art of Elysium, which is a non-profit organization that provides art projects and entertainment to children in several hospitals in the Los Angeles area. The organization also gives volunteers an opportunity to do workshops with women and children in a homeless shelter located in the Skid Row area of Downtown Los Angeles. Last year, Ellen took part in a 4-day summer camp for the kids and successfully raised a large donation to secure over 150 backpacks and $1000 worth of gift cards for uniforms for the kids to wear to school.

Her vision is to help make the world a better place by fighting all causes that create inequality for all living beings. She wants to act as a “catalyst” for greater cultural understanding and use activism, art, and education as a vehicle for change. She advocates for people in underserved communities and speaks for the voiceless. She is passionate about being a positive influence in the lives of children, hoping to give them every opportunity possible to reach their goals and find success in life. She has also more recently dedicated her efforts to the animal rights movement and hopes to create more awareness of the dangers of global agriculture on the environment and animals who are its victims. Starting with her community, she hopes to help facilitate long-term change in human practices that cause the systematic torture and death of non-human animals. She wants to make difference, and she is willing to use her talents and passion in order to facilitate transformation.