The American Psychological Association (Division 25/Behavior Analysis) awarded The B.F. Skinner Foundation Young Researcher Award in the area of applied research to Collingswood resident Dr. Bethany Raiff, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey.

Presented at the APA annual convention in Toronto, the award recognizes innovative and significant research conducted within the first seven years after receiving a doctorate. The organization recognized Raiff for her research on nicotine and conditioned reinforcement, technology-based interventions, and gamification as well as her potential for future research accomplishments.

A board-certified behavior analyst, Raiff conducts research in several areas and has been highly funded. Among other grants, the National Institutes of Health awarded approximately $600,000 to her and collaborators to develop a video game for Facebook called “Up from the Ashes.” Up from the Ashes is a contingency management intervention—a video game that uses nonmonetary incentives to encourage people to quit smoking, basing those incentives on verification that they abstained from smoking.

Raiff earned a Ph.D. and M.S. in psychology with an emphasis in behavior analysis and behavioral pharmacology from the University of Florida and a B.A. in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. 

She joined the Rowan faculty in 2012 after working as a principal investigator for four years at the National Development and Research Institutes, Inc., in New York City and as an adjunct professor in Massachusetts and Texas.

“I am truly honored to have been recognized by Division 25 of the American Psychological Association with this prestigious award for the research I have conducted over the years and for the vote of confidence in the research I plan to conduct in the future,” Raiff said.

The APA is the largest professional organization in the psychology field in the United States, and the convention is the largest psychology gathering in the world, attracting more than 11,000 psychologists and psychology students in every specialization of psychology along with research, practice, education, and policy, according to the organization.