I’ve worked as a pediatric therapist since 2010, starting as an SLP-Assistant, later as an RBT, and now I am a BCBA (Board Certified Behavior Analyst).  I didn’t start out my college career with this plan in mind.  I knew I was interested in psychology, science, and helping people, but wasn’t sure how to purse these interests.  Fortunately, while attending an orientation at the University of Texas at Dallas, I stumbled upon the field of speech language pathology.  After years of working as an SLP-assistant, I realized I loved my job, but wanted to do something more analytical and science based.  In 2012, I started working on my master’s degree in cognition and neuroscience at UTD and I enjoyed every minute of it, especially the research in working memory and cognitive plasticity. 

 

I often heard about ABA through my patients that had ABA therapy, but I never really understood what behavior therapists did.  After graduating, I started looking into the field and realized it had everything that I was looking for to combine my love for speech therapy and scientific research.  Every day I go to work, I get to provide therapy to some amazing kids, but also hypothesize about behavior, analyze data and graphs, and write programs to make meaningful changes in the patients’ lives.

 

Currently, I focus on providing resources, education, and supervision to though in the field of behavior analysis. I have previous experience as a lead BCBA for clinic and home-health settings, as a consultant for ABA clinics, and as a graduate level co-instructor. I have worked with pediatric clients with feeding/picky eating, severe challenging behaviors, social skills, academic skills, and community skills.