Stephanie Peterson

Stephanie M. Peterson, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Western Michigan University. She previously served as chair of the Department of Psychology for eight years. She also serves as the executive director of the Western Michigan University Kalamazoo Autism Center. She earned her doctorate in special education at the University of Iowa in 1994.

Previously, she taught at Gonzaga University, Utah State University, the Ohio State University and Idaho State University. Her primary research interests are helping to decrease chronic severe behavior problems in children with developmental disabilities. Specifically, she studies choice making in the treatment of problem behavior, functional communication training, reinforcement-based interventions for children with problem behavior, concurrent schedules of reinforcement in the treatment of severe problem behavior, functional analysis of problem behavior and teleconsultation.

She also has interests in applications of behavior analysis to educational interventions and teacher and behavior analyst training. She has served on a variety of editorial boards, including the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and Behavior Analysis in Practice, and recently rotated off as the editor in chief of Behavior Analysis in Practice. She also served as a senior editor for Education and Treatment of Children for many years.

She currently serves on the publications board for the Association for Behavior Analysis International, which oversees the seven journals operated by the association. She served two three-year terms on the board of directors for the Behavior Analyst Certification Board. For nearly 10 years, she has served and continues to serve as a subject matter expert for the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, most frequently serving on the disciplinary appeals committee.

In the recent past, she was appointed by the governor of Michigan to the Michigan Board of Behavior Analysts, Michigan’s licensing board for behavior analysts. She served as the president of the board for two years.