Women in Behavior Analysis - WIBA

Your BCBA credential opens more doors than you think.

Over 80% of BCBAs work in the autism field, but what about the other possibilities? Health and wellness. Schools. Business and tech. Integrated healthcare. Sports and fitness. Content creation.

This panel at is for every BCBA who has ever wondered, "What else is out there?"

📦 Practicing Outside the Skinner Box: Non-Traditional Employment Options for BCBAs

Meet the panelists bringing their journeys to the stage:
🔹 Erica Ranade, NCSP, BCBA, LBA, LPP
🔹 Lauryn Toby, PhD, BCBA
🔹 Annie McLaughlin, PhD
🔹 Quintara Tucker, MS, BCBA, IBA, LBS, LBA
🔹 Kristyn Peterson, PhD, BCBA, LBA, CWP
🔹 Sarah Burby, BCBA, NBHWC, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor

Together, they bring expertise across health & wellness coaching, educational advocacy, OBM & tech consulting, integrated primary care, and culturally responsive public practice.

You'll leave knowing:
✅ At least 3 ways BCBAs are applying their skills outside of autism care
✅ How to seek specialized training after your credential
✅ Where and how to find mentors in emerging practice areas

If you've been curious about what your career could look like, this is the session to attend.

📅 July 16, 2026 | 🕑 2:30–3:30 PM EST
🎓 1 COA HR | 1 BACB® GEN

Register: https://behaviorlive.com/conferences/wiba26/registration

She's terrified of making a mistake. She practices until she's exhausted. And she's not even a teenager yet.

Perfectionism in pr***en and adolescent female athletes is one of the most common and most overlooked challenges in youth performance environments. And behavior analysis has a lot to offer.

Mallory Quinn PhD, BCBA and Shreeya Deshmukh PhD, BCBA are tackling this head-on at :

🧠 A Behavior Analytic Approach to Treating Perfectionism in Female Youth Athletes

This session reframes perfectionism not as a personality flaw but as observable, measurable behavior maintained by specific contingencies and training histories.

What you'll learn:
✅ How reinforcement for error avoidance and coercive coaching practices shape perfectionism
✅ A stepwise, function-based intervention model across coach and parent systems
✅ A behavior-analytic framework for regulation and psychological flexibility under pressure
✅ Real case examples you can apply immediately to your own clients

Whether you work with gymnasts, swimmers, dancers, or any high-pressure youth performers, this session gives you data-driven, regulation-centered tools to help young athletes thrive, not just perform.

📅 July 16, 2026 | 🕑 2:30–3:30 PM EST
🎓 1 COA HR | 1 BACB® GEN

Register: https://behaviorlive.com/conferences/wiba26/registration

🌈 Happy Pride Month from Women in Behavior Analysis! 🌈

This June, we celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and recognize the countless individuals whose courage, authenticity, and advocacy have helped create a more inclusive world.

At WIBA, we believe that our field is strongest when every person feels valued, respected, and welcomed. Diversity in experiences, identities, perspectives, and voices strengthens our science, our leadership, and our community.

Pride Month is an opportunity to celebrate progress, honor the contributions of LGBTQ+ professionals and allies, and recommit ourselves to creating spaces where everyone can learn, grow, lead, and belong.

Whether you identify as LGBTQ+, are an ally, or are continuing your journey of learning and understanding, we invite you to join us in fostering a profession grounded in respect, compassion, and inclusion.

Because when people are empowered to bring their authentic selves to the table, our entire community benefits.

Happy Pride Month! 🌈

🔍 When a behavior analyst burns out or a crisis escalates, is it really an individual failure? Or was it predictable from the start?

Nicole Sorensen MS, EdD(c) BCBA, LBA | Jessica Dwyer BCBA | Carisa Wendt BCBA are bringing a data-driven systems lens to :

🏛️ Infrastructure Readiness and Ethical Load: Why Crisis-Driven Practice Is a Predictable Systems Outcome

Using a 51-jurisdiction scan of regulatory, workforce, coverage, and education indicators, this session introduces two powerful frameworks:

📊 The SAIII (State ABA Infrastructure Inventory Index): classifying states into high, moderate, and low readiness tiers
⚖️ Ethical Load: the cumulative pressure on practitioners to meet ethical standards in systems that don't support them

Key findings from the research:
🔹 Most states have BCBA licensure & restraint policies, but fewer than half publicly report restraint & seclusion data
🔹 Workforce development supports remain uneven nationwide
🔹 Lower infrastructure readiness = more ethical strain, higher burnout risk, and more reactive practice

You'll leave with:
✅ A replicable public-data framework
✅ An infrastructure readiness checklist for leaders
✅ Strategies to communicate systems-level needs to policymakers

Crisis-driven practice isn't a people problem. It's a systems problem. Let's talk about how to fix it.

📅 July 16, 2026 | 🕑 2:30–3:30 PM EST
🎓 1 COA HR | 1 BACB® ETH

Register: https://behaviorlive.com/conferences/wiba26/registration

💡 What if courage wasn't a personality trait but a system you could design?

Join Mary Garlington, M.A., BCBA, LBA, M.S., OTR/L at for her session:

🧠 The Behavioral Architecture of Courageous Leadership: Building Habits That Make Hard Conversations Inevitable

Drawing from Applied Behavior Analysis, neuroscience, and OBM, Mary reframes courageous leadership as an environmental design problem, not a moment of willpower.

You'll leave with:
✅ Frameworks to understand WHY we avoid hard conversations
✅ The 3-Question Documentation Framework & "twice rule"
✅ A 30-day system for building courageous leadership habits
✅ Tools designed specifically for the challenges women face in leadership

This session directly addresses the "likability penalty," socialization toward harmony, and the pressure to manage others' emotions, and gives you concrete tools to build trust-based leadership cultures instead.

📅 July 16, 2026 | 🕑 2:30–3:30 PM EST
🎓 1 COA HR | 1 BACB® GEN

Register: https://behaviorlive.com/conferences/wiba26/registration

⚙️ Preconference Workshop Alert — WIBA 2026!

The ABA industry is facing real pressure and the organizations that will survive are the ones willing to evolve.

Guy Bruce, EdD, BCBA-D is bringing a no-nonsense, systems-focused workshop to WIBA 2026 that every ABA leader, supervisor, and program designer needs to attend. Dr. Bruce introduces the EARS process, Evaluate, Analyze, Recommend, Solve, a practical framework for identifying when clients aren't making efficient progress, diagnosing the real causes of performance problems, and building organizations where every client achieves true mastery.

Spoiler: most performance problems aren't about staff knowledge. They're about system design. Come learn the difference and what to do about it.

💵 Cost: $60
📅 July 15, 2026 | 2:00–5:00 PM EST
🎓 3 COA HRS | 3 BACB® ETH

🔗 Registration here: https://behaviorlive.com/conferences/wiba26/events/adapt-or-die-pragmatic-leadership-and-organizational-performance-engineering1

💙 Preconference Workshop Alert — WIBA 2026!

Behavior that looks like noncompliance, aggression, or emotional dysregulation may actually be a trauma response. Are you equipped to recognize the difference and respond in a way that heals rather than harms?

Jenna Gilder, PhD, BCBA, LABA and Lauren Meyers, PhD are bringing one of the most important conversations in our field to WIBA 2026. In this immersive three-hour workshop, they'll guide participants through the science of trauma, its unique presentation in autistic adults, and how to embed trauma-informed care principles into behavior support planning, staff training, and clinical decision-making — from the ground up.

This isn't just about what we do. It's about how and why we do it.

💵 Cost: $60
📅 July 15, 2026 | 2:00–5:00 PM EST
🎓 3 COA HRS | 3 BACB® ETH

🔗 Register here: https://behaviorlive.com/events/from-compliance-to-compassion-trauma-informed-care-for-autistic-adults

🔬 Preconference Workshop Alert — WIBA 2026!

What if the key to better client outcomes wasn't more ABA, but a broader lens?

Sarah Burby, BCBA, NBHWC, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and Kendra Babbey, MA, BCBA, NBC-HWC are bringing their dual expertise as behavior analysts and board certified health coaches to WIBA 2026 for a workshop that will genuinely shift how you think about your practice.

You'll explore how health coaching principles, motivational interviewing, and the Transtheoretical Model of behavior change can work alongside the science you already know, helping you meet clients where they are, build stronger therapeutic alliances, and create more lasting, meaningful change.

If you've ever felt like traditional ABA training left some gaps, this is the workshop for you.

💵 Cost: $60
📅 July 15, 2026 | 10:00 AM–1:00 PM EST
🎓 3 COA HRS | 3 BACB® ETH

🔗 Registration here: https://behaviorlive.com/events/shifting-the-science-lessons-ive-learned-as-a-bcba-practicing-as-a-board-certifi1

🌿 Preconference Workshop Alert — WIBA 2026!

You know how to support behavior change in others. But are you applying those same skills to take care of yourself?

If burnout, compassion fatigue, or the constant juggle of clinical demands and personal life feels all too familiar, then this workshop is for you. Lindsay Lundquist, MA, LBA-NC, BCBA, CCTS-I brings together Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and behavior-analytic strategies in a hands-on, reflective experience designed to help clinicians stop just surviving and start truly thriving.

You'll walk away with real tools, a values-aligned action plan, and a renewed sense of purpose — in your work and your life.

💵 Cost: $60
📅 July 15, 2026 | 10:00 AM–1:00 PM EST
🎓 3 COA HRS | 3 BACB® GEN

🔗 Registration here: https://behaviorlive.com/conferences/wiba26/events/thriving-not-just-surviving-cultivating-sustainable-clinical-skills-through-act

🎙️ WIBA 2026 Preconference Workshop Spotlight!

We're excited to announce a standout preconference workshop at WIBA 2026 led by Landria Seals Green, MA, CCC-SLP, BCBA and CEO of ExcelPrep and Founder of The Huddle!

Communication Training for the Behavior Analyst: Using Language and Speech Science to Strengthen Adult Communication within High Stress Workplaces
Behavior analysts are trained in the science of behavior — but how much formal training have you received in the science of communication? This interactive, three-hour workshop bridges behavior science, speech-language science, and adult learning theory to give supervisors and practitioners the tools they need to lead effectively in high-stakes environments.

Landria will guide participants through three core areas:
🔹 The Supervision Relationship: using a functional lens to analyze feedback systems and shape professional repertoires
🔹 Action-Based Coaching: delivering behaviorally specific instruction, modeling, and feedback cycles that build skill and fluency
🔹 Workplace Resilience: communication strategies that promote psychological safety and sustain high-performing teams

Participants will also examine how generational differences, cultural and linguistic diversity, and self-identification variables shape supervisory interactions and leave with practical, behaviorally anchored tools they can use immediately.

💵 Cost: $60
✅ 3 COA HRS | 3 BACB® SUP
📅 July 15, 2026 | 2:00–5:00 PM EST

Register here: https://behaviorlive.com/conferences/wiba26/events/communication-training-for-the-behavior-analyst-using-language-and-speech-scienc