The Masters Series

Dr. Debbie Coehlo is a certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and Pediatric Mental Health Specialist with a Doctoral Degree in Family Sciences and Human Development. She is the Founder and Director of Juniper Pediatrics, a clinic modeled after John F Kennedy’s multidisciplinary system of care. Using a holistic, integrated care model, Juniper provides counseling, medication management and family therapy for children with ASD, ADHD and other childhood mental health disorders.

Dr. Coehlo completed her Master’s in Nursing with a specialty in parent- child nursing. She spent 10 years working at the Child Development Center at the University of Washington in the Genetics Clinic and Multidisciplinary Clinic. In 1999, she complete her Doctorate degree in Human Development and Family Studies. 

She continues to teach at the undergraduate and graduate level and had pursued research in the area of social networking, transitioning to out of home care for families, and child development. 

Dr. Coehlo is a co- editor for the 4th and 5th edition of Family Health Nursing (F.A. Dais, 2010/2013) and has published several journal articles in the areas of families choosing residential care, families in transition, family health nursing, and care of children with special health care needs.

Dr. Ronald Brown, a noted expert on the topic of ADHD has served as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic (Health Affairs) at the University of North Texas System.

Dr. Brown completed his Ph.D. from Georgia State University and has been the past President of the Society of Pediatric Psychology and the Association of Psychologists of Academic Health Centers.

He is a board-certified clinical health psychologist and has been an active clinician, teacher, advocate and investigator. He served as a member of the Behavioral Medicine study section of the NIH and chaired several special panels at NIH. He currently serves as the Editor of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice.

Dr. Ronald Brown’s area of specialization includes behavioral sciences, pediatric psychology, attention deficit disorders, neuropsychology, psychopharmacology, learning disabilities and psychosocial oncology. 

Dr. Lyre Fribourg is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst.  She balances her work schedule between her private practice in Los Angeles, California and a staff psychologist position at University of California, Los Angeles in the Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics clinic.  She enjoys working in an interdisciplinary team and values the collaboration with physicians when it comes to diagnosing and treating children.  She leads a parent group for newly diagnosed families of children with autism and provides group parenting classes to families of young children.  For more than 25 years, Dr. Fribourg has worked with children with neurodevelopmental disorders, and their families in homes, schools and communities.  Additionally, she has shown her commitment to educating other professionals in the field through professional development workshops about behavior management in schools and presenting at annual conventions for behavior analysts.  Outside of her practice, she loves spending time with her husband and children, who give her yet another perspective on the challenges that come with parenting children. 

Ms. Manya Ralkowski has been practicing in the field of applied behavior analysis for over 25 years. Her training began under direct education and training from consultants from the Lovaas Clinic in Los Angeles while completing her bachelor of arts in Communication Disorders with endorsements in special education and psychology at Western Washington University. Ms. Ralkowski continued her education and training with a master’s degree in Education from Lesley University and a graduate certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis from the University of Washington while working as an assistant teacher on the Project DATA grant at the Haring Center-Professional Training Unit. She also possesses a doctorate degree in Instructional Leadership.

Arthur Channer

Ronnie Detrich, Ph.D., has been providing behavior analytic services for over 50 years. His work can be characterized as thorough-going behavior analysis drawing from the conceptual, experimental, and applied branches of our discipline.

In recent years, Ronnie’s work has focused on the challenges of achieving adequate levels of treatment integrity in large systems, the role of the evidence-based practice movement in behavior analysis, and the large-scale implementation of effective practices in public schools. He is a trustee of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies and is on the editorial boards of Perspectives in Behavior Science and Exceptional Children. He serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Positive Behavior Intervention. Ronnie has also served on the editorial board of Behavior Analysis in Practice and was the Coordinator of ABAI’s Practice Board.

Dr. Shawn Kenyon, BCBA-D has been in the fields of Applied Behavior Analysis and Special Education since 1995. Throughout his career he has been a Program and Clinical Director in private schools as well as public schools and non-public special education schools in Massachusetts and California while also working and consulting nationally across several states and internationally in Brazil. In his current position, he directs behavioral services in the special education department for a large public school district in southern California.?

Dr. Kenyon is the founder and owner of a small behavioral consulting company, also located in southern California. He has been an instructor in the graduate program in Applied Behavior Analysis at Northeastern University, located in Boston MA., since 2007. Dr. Kenyon has also held faculty positions at Simmons University and Endicott College, both also located in Massachusetts and he currently serves as a reviewer for the journal Behavior Analysis in Practice.

Peter Gerhardt, Ed.D., is the Executive Director of the EPIC School in Paramus, NJ.  Dr. Gerhardt has more than 35 years’ experience utilizing the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis in support of adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorders in educational, employment, residential and community-based settings. He is the author or co-author on a number of articles and chapters on the needs of adolescents and adults with ASD and has presented nationally and internationally on this topic. 

Dr. Gerhardt serves as Chairman of the Scientific Council for the Organization for Autism Research and is on numerous professional advisory boards including the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies.  He received his doctorate from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey’s Graduate School of Education.

Amanda Fishley, MA, BCBA, COBA is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and Certified Ohio Behavior Analyst. She received her Master’s degree in Special Education/ABA from The Ohio State University. She has been working with in the field of ABA for over ten years.

She has experience working with children, adolescents and adults in school, home and mental health settings. These experiences have allowed her to work closely with parents, teachers, paraprofessionals, as well as mentoring and supervising behavior analysts. She is the Associate Director of Clinical Solutions for Special Learning, creating and presenting educational materials and promoting Special Learning’s mission to positively impact the special needs community.

Dr. James Partington is the clinical director of Behavior Analysts, Inc. in Pleasant Hill, California. This psychological corporation provides a variety of educational services for children with autism or other developmental disabilities. Dr. Partington is a licensed psychologist and Board Certified Behavior Analyst with decades of experience. His expertise is in language intervention for children with language delays as a result of autism-related disorders. Dr. Partington received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Western Michigan University and his Ph.D. from Florida State University. He has taught courses in the psychology department at West Virginia University, in the education department at St. Mary's College, and in the counseling psychology program at the University of San Francisco. He has published several papers on teaching strategies for children with disabilities, and has co-authored with Dr. Mark L. Sundberg Teaching Language to Children With Autism or Other Developmental Disabilities and The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills (The ABLLS): An Assessment, Curriculum Guide, and Skills Tracking System for Children With Autism or Other Developmental Disabilities.

Dr. Bailey received his PhD from the University of Kansas and is currently Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Florida State University where he was a member of the graduate faculty for 38-years and produced a record 63 PhDs. He is currently Director of the FSU Panama City Masters Program in Applied Behavior Analysis. 

Dr. Bailey has published over 100 peer-reviewed research articles, is a past editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, and is co-author of Research Methods in Applied Behavior Analysis, How Dogs Learn, Ethics for Behavior Analysts, 2nd Expanded Edition, How to Think Like a Behavior Analyst, and 25 Essential Skills and Strategies for Professional Behavior Analysts, all co-authored with Dr. Mary Burch.

Karen is the Founder and CEO of Special Learning. She started the company in 2010 after learning about the effectiveness of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) juxtaposed against the reality that over 95% of the world did not have access to ABA. As an entrepreneur with over 20 years of corporate experience, she started Special Learning to leverage existing and emerging technology to make quality ABA resources and services available to parents, educators and professionals around the world.

Karen’s entrepreneurial experience includes starting and growing a diversity retained executive search firm specializing in placing women and minority executives in leadership positions of Fortune 1,000 companies. Her investment banking background includes working with various venture capital and private equity companies to facilitate deal flow while representing CEOs of rapidly growing companies seeking to raise equity and debt capital for various middle market businesses and commercial real estate developers. Her corporate background includes various leadership and functional roles in Fortune 1,000 and middle market companies.  Her additional entrepreneurial activities include owning and operating high end boutique

She graduated with a Masters of Management degree from Kellogg Graduate School of Management of Northwestern University. She is a Certified Public Accountant and a recipient of the Elijah Watts Sells Award from the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts (AICPA), an award granted to less than top 5% of all CPA exam candidates.