UNT to use multimillion-dollar bequest to fund unique research of behavior analysis

UNT's Department of Behavior Analysis has now received most of the more than $3 million that Beatrice H. Barrett left to the department upon her death in 2003. Barrett was the former director of the Behavior Prosthesis Laboratory at the Walter E. Fernald State School in Waltham, Mass., and a prominent behavioral researcher.

The department is using the funds to create a program of neuro-operant research, the only research program of its kind at a U.S. college or university.

The funding will support a full-time researcher in neuro-operant relations, a field of study that involves the careful measurement of a person's brain activities as his or her precisely measured behavior changes over time. Sigrid Glenn, Regents Professor of behavior analysis, says a search will begin this month to fill the position.

Barrett also left UNT 35,000 hours of behavior research data that the Department of Behavior Analysis, in a joint project with the Texas Center for Digital Knowledge, will archive digitally and make available for scholars everywhere.

BY NANCY KOLSTI nkolsti@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue

• New InHouse@UNT format to launch in September
• Administrators to propose 2 percent merit raise pools for UNT faculty and staff
• Regents to discuss campus plans for Denton and Dallas at August meeting
• UNT opens Honors College for Fall 2005
• Exhibit about UNT's branding process opens this month
• UNT summer commencement is Saturday
• About the commencement speaker
• UNT's First Flight Week, Howdy Week traditions continue this month
• Win a trip to Baton Rouge on UNT's Regal Eagle bus

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