Natalia A. Baires | SIU

Behavior Analysis Therapy (Online)

Dr. Natalia Baires (pronounced "by-res") is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Program Director for the online Behavior Analysis and Therapy programs. An English-Spanish bilingual, doctoral-level Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D), Dr. Baires earned her Ph.D. in Psychology with a specialization in Behavior Analysis and Therapy from Southern Illinois University in 2020. Her research interests include culturally adapted and culturally responsive interventions for culturally and linguistically diverse individuals, social justice and equity within and outside the field of behavior analysis, compassionate approaches within behavior-analytic services and supervision/mentorship, the role of language and cognition from a Relational Frame Theory framework (particularly for bilingual speakers), and the use of Acceptance and Commitment Training to ensure sustainable behavioral flexibility and psychological well-being.

As a clinician, Dr. Baires has previously worked with individuals with and without developmental disabilities across the lifespan (from infants to young adults) in home and clinic settings. Much of her professional experiences have included supervising and providing behavior-analytic services to Spanish-speaking immigrant families. As a scholar, Dr. Baires regularly conducts symposia and panels at national and international conferences within behavior sciences on topics such as the limited representation of Latina faculty in behavior analysis programs, pay disparity among behavior-analytic practitioners, contextual speech analyses of political discourses, increasing social skills in adults with autism via observational learning, and more. She has also conducted invited presentations in Spanish for caregivers of individuals with autism/autistic individuals to inform on maintaining self-care and self-compassion during COVID-19 using an Acceptance and Commitment Training approach. Moreover, Dr. Baires has served as a guest reviewer for peer-reviewed journals such as Behavior Analysis in Practice and the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science.

Dr. Baires completed the Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) fellowship program, participated in SIU's Women's Civic Institute, and served as a student representative for the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science's (ACBS) Women Special Interest Group (SIG). She holds several leadership positions in the field, including Board Member at Large and Chair of the Illinois Association for Behavior Analysis's (ILABA) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee, Board Member at Large (with a DEI focus) of the Southern California Chapter of the ACBS, and co-chair for the American Psychological Association Division 25’s (Behavior Analysis) Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee.