ADVISORY BOARD

Franchesca Alamo

Franchesca Alamo is a corporate attorney based in Chicago, IL with a B.A. in English (‘15) and a J.D. from the University of Chicago (‘22). She shares a home and life with her fiancé, José, and their tortoiseshell cat, Beatrice, and volunteers regularly at Old Saint Patrick’s Church and the Anti-Cruelty Society.

Born and raised in Houston, TX, she shared her childhood home and yard with hamsters, fish, dogs, cats, and even a family of possums, and attended the local rodeo every spring. One year, she stumbled into a livestock sale on the fairgrounds; she remembers vividly how one teen boy burst into sobs and collapsed against the heifer he had raised from birth upon learning that she had been auctioned off for slaughter. This experience, among others, moved her to reconsider what it means to love a non-human animal.

After a decade of observing vegetarian Lents and buying cruelty-free, she took an animal rights course in her final year of law school and renounced meat that very quarter—on the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. She has been a member of the Animal Legal Defense Fund ever since.

A lifelong Catholic, Franchesca brings to the Institute over fifteen years of parish ministry and a faith rooted in witness, solidarity, and sacramentality. She joins the Institute in hopes of building a Church that recognizes the Agnus Dei in every living creature and that defends each as an irreplaceable part of the Body of Christ.