Applied Animal Behavior – 2025 Annual Report

By Erica Feuerbacher, Ran Courant-Morgan, Stephanie Keesey-Phelan, Kimberly Truong, and Maia Huff-Owen

The mission of the Applied Animal Behavior (AAB) SIG is to promote applied animal behavior analytic research, set high standards in methods and techniques of animal training, support those in the applied animal behavior field, and promote the well-being of animals in applied settings wherever they are found. The AAB SIG has been in existence for 32 years!

As an approved ACE provider for BACB CEUs, the AAB SIG provided virtual continuing education opportunities via Zoom throughout the year. The meetings included presentations from behavior analysts working with animals in a variety of contexts. One event involved several virtual chats, open to members and non-members, to connect with each other and exchange ideas.

The AAB SIG is developing a new Experts Directory for members. This directory will serve to connect members who are new to applied animal behavior or new to a specialty within AAB with experts in that specialty. In addition, the SIG provided its members with a comprehensive listing of undergraduate and graduate programs offering applied animal behavior analysis opportunities, as well as a resource listing of publications and CE opportunities in applied animal behavior analysis.

Each year the SIG offers an annual student research award in honor of Marian Breland Bailey and a Diversity Award (established in 2022). Both of these awards were presented at the SIG business meeting at the ABAI Convention in Philadelphia.

The 2024 winners for the Marian Breland Bailey award were Yasmeen Gomez and Yhakira Gray (undergraduate poster presentation) for their work on using positive reinforcement to train shelter cats to ride in strollers and Fryda Díaz and José Abraham Rivera Uribe (graduate poster presentation) for their work assessing spatial dynamics of dog behavior. The recipient for the Diversity Award was Yasmeen Gomez.

In 2025, our B. F. Skinner Lecture Series invited speaker was Dr. Angela Fournier, with the paper session “Operationalizing Human-Animal Interaction: Defining, Measuring, and Overcoming Challenges;” and our invited speaker was Dr. Christopher Varnon, with the paper session “The Behavior of (Other) Organisms: Considerations for Nontraditional Animal Research.”

Our SIG organizes tours around applied animal behavior efforts at each ABAI. In 2024, the SIG hosted a tour of the Penn Vet Working Dog Center, where participants observed dogs (and puppies!) learning skills for search and rescue, as well as participating in research activities. In 2025, the SIG hosted a tour at the Smithsonian Zoo, where we learned about their behavioral husbandry and enrichment efforts, and at the Humane Rescue Alliance, where we learned about their life saving efforts for shelter animals.

Finally, the SIG features a website as well as a Facebook page titled, “Applied Animal Behavior Special Interest Group” with over 2,500 members. Members of the group pose questions on a variety of topics within applied animal behavior, and there is a monthly thread where people promote other animal- and behavior-related events and opportunities.

We look forward to continuing to serve our members and pursue our mission through the 2025-2026 year!