About Us
Terri Rodgers, PhD, BCBA-D, MO-LBA
Dr. Rodgers (Terri) has been a practitioner of applied behavior analysis for over 30 years. She graduated with a doctoral degree in behavior analysis from the University of Florida. Served as president of the Florida Association of Behavior Analysis. She has served in leadership positions in state government departments for Florida and Missouri. Terri retired from the Missouri Division of Developmental Disabilities after 13 years as the first Chief Behavior Analyst. Terri has provided behavioral services in a wide variety of settings, including family homes, foster homes, group homes, institutions for the developmentally disabled, and schools. She has participated in research and published in the areas of self-injurious behaviors, parent training, and interventions for severe behaviors. Terri worked directly with committees planning and implementing licensure for behavior analysis for Missouri and Arizona and served on the Missouri Behavior Analyst Advisory Board for licensure of behavior analysts for more than ten years.
Terri has been honored and privileged to serve on the dissertation and thesis committees of several fine graduate students and has mentored and provided practicum supervision for practitioners in behavior analysis. Her proudest work has been in helping to develop the caregiver curriculum, “The Tools for Positive Behavior Change,” and leading and working with the behavior analysis team at the Missouri Division of Developmental Disabilities, developing the Positive Tiered Supports system. She worked with this team to develop a state-wide, multi-tiered system of support processes for agencies serving people with developmental disabilities. Implementing the Tools curriculum was the foundation for agency staff learning, living, and doing strategies that are universally necessary and beneficial for healthy and happy lives.
Terri enjoys discussions of behavior-analytic interpretations of cultural phenomena, mental health issues, and treatment such as trauma, borderline personality disorder, or dialectical behavior therapy, and she particularly loves reviewing and interpreting data from applied interventions. Terri is committed to her three dogs and parrot. Enjoys traveling and learning new languages.
Rhiannon Evans, MS, BCBA, MO-LBA
Rhi Evans began her career at Fulton State Hospital, where she researched and developed effective hospital-wide interventions for individuals with co-occurring needs. Beyond system work, Rhi worked with adults with the most complex behavioral health challenges and helped them transition to less restrictive care due to successful behavioral support plan design, multi-disciplinary collaboration, and implementation support.
Rhi worked statewide with the Missouri Department of Mental Health for ten years. She coached a team of over 25 staff, creating fidelity and training models that supported provider implementation of positive behavior supports (PBS). She led several significant projects during this time, such as converting “The Tools for Positive Behavior Change” from in-person training to a hybrid model and creating Medicaid's first PBS value-based payment incentive. Rhi supervised multiple practicum students and built risk prevention training workshops, including behavioral risk assessment, safety crisis planning, and a social-emotional skills workshop where staff learned to mentor skill development utilizing an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) framework. Rhi is passionate about partnering with providers and individuals and serves as an advocate for advancing PBS across states. In 2023, she earned the Outstanding Volunteer APBS Member from the International Association of Positive Behavior Support for her volunteer work. Rhi now helps to enhance and develop new programs at The Missouri Behavioral Health Council as the first Behavioral Health/IDD Integrated Care Manager. Currently, she is leading the first statewide BH/IDD learning collaborative and has designed intensive community residential programs that embed behavior analytic programming.
Rhi is pursuing her PhD in Behavior Analysis and Organizational Behavior Management through The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Her research interests include utilizing behavioral systems to address homelessness and risk, increasing clinical collaboration, and commonly missed elements in treatment plans. Rhi enjoys adventures with her family, like traveling, camping, and creative arts.
Lucas Evans, PhD, BCBA, MO-LBA
Dr. Lucas Evans has over a decade of experience supporting individuals with and without disabilities across the care continuum. Lucas graduated with a doctoral degree in behavior analysis from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. At Missouri's Department of Mental Health, his contributions have shaped the support strategies for those with intellectual/developmental disabilities and co-occurring behavioral health challenges (BHIDD). As part of the MOADD Task Force, he helped develop best practices for supporting individuals with BHIDD. Lucas has conducted extensive analyses of the root causes of crises, developed a model for conceptualizing system needs, consulted on the development of regulations for behavioral health crisis centers, consulted on the reconceptualization of state-operated programs, supported the development of an inpatient psychiatric stabilization program, and developed a clinical resource team model of support for community providers.
Lucas’s commitment extends beyond program development to include staff well-being and implementing practical and efficient processes for better care delivery. He has co-developed a program that provided competency-based training and ongoing coaching to build relationships between staff and residents and decrease restraints in an inpatient psychiatric hospital, replicated in a community residential setting. Lucas has advocated for and developed quality measures and used those to refine programs to achieve desired outcomes. Lucas's doctoral research also centered on enhancing clinical decision-making, during which he developed a computerized clinical decision support system for comprehensive case conceptualization.
Lucas loves discussing behavioral systems, quantitative behavior models, decision-making, and case conceptualization. He also loves exploring the world, playing video games, and watching movies with his fantastic son and wonderful wife. He has also been known to build things from time to time, including woodworking, PCs, and scale models.
