Amy Schilz
Contemporary Animal Training
Amy Schilz is a Senior Animal Behaviorist at the Giraffe Center for Conservation & Care.
When standing in front of a giraffe training partner, Amy is acutely aware of how lucky she is to have been surrounded by such amazing people and animals throughout her life. Her path into this career field was forged at a young age; she started interning at The Milwaukee County Zoo in high school. From there, she attended the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and earned a B.S. in both Wildlife Management and Biology, and minored in Captive Biology.
Since that time, she's soaked up every opportunity to learn more about animals and how best to try to save them. She's dabbled in field research, veterinary nursing, and zookeeping. While exploring all of the options of where she could best focus her time and energy to make a difference, she discovered the science of behavior change! It has changed how she's worked with animals throughout the years, and she's currently really focused on how to best train with a dialogue style of learning. She enjoys coaching training sessions, running giraffe workshops, and continuing to learn from others through consulting opportunities provided by Behavior Works.
Bianca Papadopoulos
Contemporary Animal Training
Bianca has always had a passion for animals, and it was her dream from a young age to become an animal trainer. Bianca started her career in 2005 working with elephants and seals at Melbourne Zoo, Australia. Since then, Bianca has worked with a wide range of different species across all taxa at several facilities in Australia and has spent time volunteering at various marine parks and zoos in the US. In 2011, Bianca returned to Melbourne Zoo working with primates including gorillas, orangutans and gibbons. In 2017 Bianca was appointed as the inaugural Animal Training Coordinator at the zoo, where she manages the animal training programs for all species and helps coach and upskill the keepers in this space. The programs are designed to allow the animals the opportunity to be active participants in their own health care and improve their welfare. In 2015, she was successful in acquiring an international fellowship through the International Specialized Skills Institute to investigate world leading animal training applications and programs in a zoo setting. Through the fellowship she was able to attend animal training workshops, courses and conferences worldwide. During the fellowship, it directed her down the path of the science of behavior change. Bianca works hard on continuing her learning journey and disseminating her learnings to help build skills to not only her direct colleagues but also to the broader zoo community in the Australasian region.
Bob Chastain
Leadership
Bob Chastain is the President & CEO of Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.
Bob Chastain is a visionary nonprofit leader with over 34 years of experience, including more than 20 years as President & CEO of Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Renowned for combining strategic acumen with operational excellence, Bob has led nationally recognized institutions, fostering growth, sustainability, and mission impact at every level. His leadership spans board governance, capital development, strategic planning, accreditation, conservation leadership, and cultivating high-performing organizational cultures.
Bob’s career at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo began in 1995 as Curator of Horticulture, progressing through roles as Director of Horticulture & Construction, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, and ultimately President CEO in 2005. Over his tenure, he led one of North America’s most visited and respected zoological institutions, overseeing an organizational transformation marked by sustained growth, operational innovation, and conservation excellence.
Christy Alligood, Ph.D., BCBA-D
Chief Science Officer
Dr. Christy Alligood is a sought-after teacher, speaker, and thought leader whose experience spans the science and practice of behavior analysis.
Dr. Alligood received an MA (2003) from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a Ph.D. (2007) from West Virginia University. She is also a doctoral-level Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D).
For over 17 years, Dr. Alligood served as a behavior scientist at Disney’s Animals, Science, and Environment. In that capacity, she used her expertise in the application of behavior analysis to enhance the welfare of nonhuman animals through cooperative training, environmental enrichment, behavioral problem solving, and behavior change strategies supporting the conservation of wildlife and wild places.
Dr. Alligood is now a faculty member in the Department of Applied Behavioral Science at the University of Kansas. Since 2020, she has also been an instructor and consultant at Behavior Works, where she teaches How Research Works and facilitates the monthly Animal Behavior Research Readers discussion group for animal professionals. She previously held faculty positions at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and the University of Florida, where she was a nominee for the 2021 UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Teacher of the Year Award. She has served in many leadership roles in the Association for Behavior Analysis International, including president of the Applied Animal Behavior Special Interest Group, Coordinator of the Special Interest Groups Board, and At-large Representative to the Executive Council. She is also a past president and secretary of the Southeastern Association for Behavior Analysis and a general member of the AZA Behavior Advisory Group serving on the Culture Change working group.
Jill Fernandes, Ph.D.
Animal Welfare
Dr. Jill Fernandes is an Animal Welfare Scientist.
Dr. Fernandes is a scientist and consultant in the applied field of animal welfare. She aims to empower people to shape a better world for the animals under their care. She works with zoos, aquariums, farms, and animal facilities around the world to establish science-based animal welfare improvement programs. Her consulting approach is participatory and builds on caregivers’ knowledge, with the goal of turning all animal caregivers into animal welfare scientists by equipping them with the understanding, tools, and confidence to make evidence-based decisions that improve animals’ lives.
Ken Ramirez
Chief Training Officer
Ken Ramirez is the Executive Vice-President and Chief Training Officer at Karen Pryor Clicker Training where he helps to oversee the vision, development and implementation of training education programs for the organization.
Previously, Ken served as EVP of animal care and animal training at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, where he developed and supervised animal care and animal health programs, staff training and development as well as public presentation programs for more than 32,000 animals. He worked at Shedd Aquarium for over 25 years and continued as a consultant for several years after.
A more than 50-year veteran of animal care and training, Ramirez is a biologist and animal behavior specialist who has overseen or consulted on training projects for many zoological organizations throughout the world. He began his training career working with guide dogs for the visually impaired and has maintained a close affiliation to pet training throughout his career. He hosted two successful seasons of the pet training television series Talk to the Animals that compared pet training to the important work done with training and caring for animals in zoological facilities. He has also worked closely with several search and rescue dog organizations, service dog groups, as well as with bomb and narcotic dogs.
Ramirez has been active in several professional organizations, including the International Marine Animal Trainer’s Association (IMATA), of which he is a past president. He taught a graduate course on animal training at Western Illinois University for 20 years. Ramirez has written for numerous scientific publications and authored countless popular articles. He authored the book ANIMAL TRAINING: Successful Animal Management through Positive Reinforcement, published in 1999. His most recent book The Eye of the Trainer: Animal Training, Transformation, and Trust, was published in 2020. Notably, in the past ten years, Ken has received three lifetime achievement awards from different professional training organizations: ABMA (Animal Behavior Manager’s Alliance), IMATA (International Marine Animal Trainers Association), and APDT (Association of Professional Dog Trainers).
Kiki Yablon, M.A.
Function-based Assessment
Kiki Yablon, MA, KPA Faculty, CPDT-KA, is a Chicago-based dog trainer and teacher with a master’s degree in applied behavior analysis. In addition to consulting with private clients both locally and online, she coaches other professionals as Karen Pryor Academy faculty, a coinstructor for BehaviorWorks, and a well-regarded conference speaker. Kiki is a former newspaper and magazine editor and shares her insights about the practical application of behavior analysis on her blog at kikiyablondogtraining.com
Megan Sanders, M.A.
Behavioral Skills Training
Megan Sanders has worked in the zoo field for the last 23+ years, with much of her career spent at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (CMZ). She started as a keeper in the children’s zoo, then moved to an area responsible for a variety of species including carnivores, primates, birds, reptiles, and marsupials. The experience of applying the science of behavior change to a range of species supported her in becoming CMZ’s first Animal Behavior Programs Manager. In that role, Megan oversaw zoo-wide training and enrichment programs, helped establish CMZ’s natural behavior show programs, and advanced medical/husbandry training.
In addition to her zoo work, Megan spent 17 years teaching for the Zoo Keeping Technology Degree Program at Pikes Peak State College. She developed curriculums and instructed courses including Introduction to Animal Training, Animal Training Applications, Animal Behavior, and Introduction to Captive Animal Management.
Megan has also broadened her skills as a contract trainer for a service dog organization, through multiple long-term consulting partnerships, and currently is a zoo behavior consultant and course co-instructor for Behavior Works LLC. She holds a master’s degree in Applied Behavioral Science from the University of Kansas. Her thesis research focused on effective teaching strategies for animal trainers and transferring training skills into real-world settings.
Rick Hester
Chief Executive Officer
Rick Hester is the Director of Animal Care and Wellbeing at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado. His career at the zoo spans nearly two decades, beginning as a zookeeper in 2006 caring for a wide variety of species, including small primates, great apes, penguins, African lions, and bears. In 2015, he started working with Dr. Susan Friedman and began to understand the importance of behavior analysis and its application for animals in human care. He began curating the zoos behavior programs in 2018 and now oversees the zoo’s animal department. His work includes the zoo's animal training for husbandry, medical, and public show behaviors, engineering enriched environments, developing programs to improve problem behavior situations, the zoo's formal animal welfare assessments, and exhibit design. He is affiliative faculty at Colorado State University in the Department of Biology and a behavior consultant and course co-instructor for Susan Friedman's Behavior Works LLC.
Steve Martin
Conservation and Demonstrations
Steve Martin is the President & CEO of Natural Encounters Inc.
In 1976, Steve Martin set up the first of its kind, free-flight, natural behavior bird show at the San Diego Wild Animal Park (now called the Safari Park). After the show gained international acclaim, he went out on his own in 1980 to set up bird shows at various parks around the world. In 1983, he branched out to apply his training skill with all types of animals in the zoo and aquarium world. His consulting activities have now taken him to over 30 countries working with more than 130 zoological facilities.
Susan Friedman, Ph.D.,
Founder
Dr. Susan G. Friedman, Ph.D. is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University. Susan has co-authored chapters on behavior change in five veterinary texts, and her popular articles have been translated into 17 languages. She teaches seminars and courses on animal learning online (How Behavior Works: Living & Learning With Animals), with students from 63 countries so far. Susan also consults with zoos and animal organizations around the world. She was appointed to the F&WS California Condor Recovery Team from 2002 – 2010, after which time the team was retired due to the success of the birds in the wild. She is the Chairperson of the Scientific Advisory Committee of American Humane Association (AHA) Film and TV Unit, and a member in good standing of ABAI, ABMA, IAATE and IAABC.