Dr. Cara Phillips

Cara L. Phillips, Ph.D., BCBA-D received her master’s degree in Applied Behavior Analysis from Florida State University in 2005. She earned her Ph.D. in the experimental analysis of behavior from the University of Florida in 2012. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Neurobehavioral Inpatient Unit, then stayed on as a Senior Behavior Analyst. She has worked with children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) across a variety of settings including residential, in-home, and public and non-public school placements. Prior to her teaching position at Rutgers, she was the executive director of a private severe special education program in Massachusetts. Her interests broadly lie in both skill acquisition and the assessment and treatment of problem behavior in individuals with ASD. Specifically, she has studied stimulus control of verbal behavior, generalized skill repertories,  and methods to assess idiosyncratic functions of behavior. More recently, she has developed interest in the impact of restricted and repetitive interests on individuals with ASD and the relationship between research and practice.  She has taught as an adjunct at the undergraduate and graduate level and published articles in several peer reviewed journals.