Inside Behavior Analysis
Volume 3 | 2011 | Number 2 | Online ISSN: 2151-4704
New Zealand ABA
By Lewis Bizo
The New Zealand ABA (NZABA) chapter has 156 members, primarily consisting of staff students and recent graduates of the seven major universities in New Zealand. Additionally, our membership includes therapists and business consultants.
In 2010, the seventh annual conference of the NZABA was hosted by the Department of Psychology at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch (September 3–5). The conference featured 26 paper presentations and 5 poster presentations that represented a wide range of topics drawn from both the applied and experimental analysis of behaviour, and described research on a wide range of species that included humans, rats, pigeons, hens, and possums. The student prize was won by Andrew Hucks from the University of Canterbury for his paper "Probability Bisection in the Pigeon."
The conference is perhaps going to be best remembered for the massive earthquake that occurred there at 4:36 am on Saturday morning. Fortunately, none of the attendees suffered any serious injury, and despite the major disruption to the conference venue, the event continued.
The eighth annual conference of the NZABA will be hosted by the School of Psychology at the University of Waikato in Hamilton from the 26–28 of August 2011. The Call for Papers is open until August 1, and those interested should contact Lewis Bizo (lbizo@waikato.ac.nz) for more information.
The NZABA would also like to acknowledge recent awards that have been given to its members:
- Michael Davison has been awarded the American Psychological Association Division 25 Distinguished Contributions to Behavior Analysis Award.
- Dr. Chris Podlesnik—who arrived at Auckland to take up a lecturing job on February 17—has been awarded the American Psychological Association Division 25 Early Researcher Award.
People interested in joining NZABA should note that there is no formal application process or fee. Active membership is achieved by attending the annual conference and paying any necessary fees (note that there is no fee for student presenters). Any interested individuals should contact Celia Lie (celia@psy.otago.ac.nz) to register for membership, or complete the online form on the NZABA website (http://nzaba.org/membership/).