Elizabeth Kjellstrand Hartwig is an Assistant Professor in the Professional Counseling Program at Texas State University. She teaches marriage and family therapy, play therapy, and animal-assisted counseling. In 2016, she developed the Texas State University Animal-Assisted Counseling (AAC) Academy. The AAC Academy is a professional training program that promotes the human-animal bond through the study and practice of animal-assisted counseling. The AAC Academy offers a series of three intensive trainings for graduate students and professionals to earn introductory and advanced training in animal-assisted counseling. Dr. Hartwig pioneered the first involvement of therapy dogs on the Texas State University campus for teaching and research through a study on canine-assisted therapy with adolescents in the 2014-2015 school year. This study has produced an article: Hartwig, E. K. (2017). Building solutions in youth: Evaluation of the Human-Animal Resilience Therapy intervention. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health. Another article she wrote with a co-writer, titled Practitioner Perspectives of Animal-Assisted Counseling, was published in January 2018 in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling. She has presented at the Association for Play Therapy (APT) in 2015 on Canine-Assisted Play Therapy: Hope and Healing with Kids and Canines, the International Association for Human Animal Interaction Organizations (IAHAIO) Conference in 2016 on Enhancing the Evidence Base of Canine-Assisted Therapy Research, and the International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ) in 2017 on A Systematic Review of Online Canine-Assisted Therapy Program Screening Tools. Dr. Hartwig serves as a Pet Partners Therapy Animal Team Evaluator and is a volunteer team with her canine partner, Ruggles. She also has a private practice in New Braunfels, TX called Pawsitive Family Counseling, LLC.