Alan D. Poling
Western Michigan University
Dr. Alan D. Poling received his Ph.D. in 1977 from the University of Minnesota, where he worked with Travis Thompson. He spent a year at the University of South Carolina as a research associate and instructor before joining the psychology faculty at Western Michigan University (WMU) in 1978. He was promoted to the rank of professor in 1988. Dr. Poling is a prolific author whose research includes significant contributions to a broad array of topics including basic learning processes, preclinical and clinical psychopharmacology, research methods, animal welfare, and gender issues in science. In 2009 Dr. Poling joined APOPO, a non-governmental organization, to advance the behavior science involved in training giant African pouched rats to detect landmines and tuberculosis. He has published a dozen books and more than 300 articles in a staggering array of scientific journals, from those explicitly in the domain of behavior analysis (including the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, Behavior Analysis in Practice, and The Psychological Record) to those that represent the dissemination of our science to other audiences (including the Journal of Veterinary Behavior Clinical Applications and Research, Psychopharmacology, Journal of ERW and Mine Action, and Tuberculosis Research and Treatment). His work has been supported with grants from NIDA, NIH, NIMH, and the U.S. Army, and it has been recognized by numerous awards including the International Humanitarian Award from the American Psychological Association and the Award for Scientific Translation from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis. Dr. Poling has been a leader in shaping our field through his editorial work, often as an action editor, for almost 30 different journals, and in his role as an educator at WMU, where he has taught 18 different courses and mentored 36 doctoral students.