Association for Behavior Analysis International

Masters, check! Doctorate, check! Now what? For many graduate students, deciding what to do after graduation can be a daunting task. One option is identifying, applying for, and surviving a post-doctoral fellowship. This panel will outline the post-doctoral process through an open discussion with recent post-doctoral fellows. Panelists will draw from their experience to highlight the clinical, research, and training opportunities that helped them prepare for their professional careers.

Panelists will provide and discuss information relevant to applying to graduate school in behavior analysis. Panelists will explain the process of applying to graduate school, providing insight into the qualifications necessary to gain admission and characteristics that lead to a successful career as a graduate student. Specifically, panelists will discuss the importance and relevance of one's academic achievements (e.g., grade point average and standardized test scores), professional and extracurricular experiences (e.g., presentations at conferences and publications), research, and teaching involvement and how these factors influence admission into a graduate program in behavior analysis. Panelists will also provide unique perspective regarding the admission process, discussing characteristics and qualities that they find attractive on a prospective candidate's curriculum vitae and overall application. The panelist discussion will provide prospective graduate students with a comprehensive account on what constitutes a competitive application and how one should approach applying to graduate programs in behavior analysis.

The applied analysis of animal behavior is a promising area of research and practice within the field of behavior analysis. Applied behavior analysts improve the lives of animals and their human caregivers in many settings, including homes, shelters, and zoos. Although this work is interesting to many students of behavior analysis, the path is not always clear. Students often wonder where and how to pursue graduate study in this unique specialization. This panel will be comprised of graduate students studying applied animal behavior in several different university programs. Panelists will discuss how they chose a graduate program, as well as their actual graduate school experiences. Topics will include coursework, research and practicum opportunities, life as a graduate student, long term goals, and other advice for interested students and prospective students. Audience members will have opportunities to pose questions to panelists.

In recent years, there has been growing interest from both basic and applied researchers about how to effectively collaborate between these two areas of study. This interest is evidenced by a recent issue of The Behavior Analyst (Volume 34, Number 1) that featured a series of commentaries on translational research. Translational research may be broadly defined as the application of principles discovered in the basic laboratory to problems of social significance. This panel discussion will focus on a) the importance of translational research, b) ways to promote translational research, c) the current state of translational research, including challenges presented by this approach, and d) how the field should proceed to ensure that basic and applied researchers collaborate in future endeavors.