SABA Master's Thesis Grant Recipients
2010: April Becker (University of North Texas)
April Becker earned her undergraduate degree in zoology from Colorado State University, where she studied the vocalizations of songbirds under Myron Baker. She worked for several years in various positions in wildlife and bird shows in Colorado, Minnesota, and Texas before returning to school to directly study the core science that provides a touchstone for all animal trainers: behavior analysis. April is currently earning her MS from the University of North Texas (UNT). April's research aspirations sprouted from the idea that the scientific analysis, verification, testing, and expansion of animal training practices provide the best hope of improving the lives of animals and the skills of their human caretakers. At first, her research at UNT centered on reinforcer effectiveness and shaping, but later extended to response variability, creativity, and cultural analysis. Incredible mentors at the UNT such as Jesus Rosales-Ruiz and Sigrid Glenn helped both to expand her interests and to expand her views on the potential impact of behavior analytic research. Thanks to the generality of behavior principles, humans as well as other animals stand to benefit from a deeper understanding thereof, whether the research is conducted with a particular application in mind or not. April hopes someday to make a contribution to the community's effort to increase behavior analytic understanding and bring that understanding to bear on real-world problems, in the field of animal training and elsewhere.
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