Naima Bhana-Lopez, Ph.D., BCBA-D
Dr. Naima Bhana-Lopez (she/her/ella) is an assistant professor of special education and a board certified behavior analyst, doctoral level (BCBA-D) at Utah State University. She has done an extensive amount of training and related scholarship for caregivers of children with developmental disabilities both in the US and abroad. Her scholarship is focused on developing methods to increase social-communication opportunities for young children with developmental disabilities by training natural communication partners such as family members, teachers, and paraprofessionals. Specifically, her research seeks to improve the quality of life of ethnically and racially diverse students, teachers, and families, as well as to expand services for children with disabilities in Spanish-speaking countries. She provides essential culturally responsive supports and collaborates with parent organizations to first identify the type of supports they need and then provide those supports in a culturally responsive manner.
Dr. Bhana-Lopez has exciting ongoing collaborations with colleagues in Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Chile. In Mexico and Panama, she works with caregiver organizations and provides training free-of-charge on the topics of autism, assistive technology, behavioral strategies, and augmentative and alternative communication. Regarding her work, she is always generous in providing presentations and professional development in Spanish to reach professionals. Last year she presented at the ISAAC conference in Mexico and she recently presented at the Puerto Rico ABA conference in October 2024.
Dr. Bhana-Lopez is recognized for her valuable work, receiving several invitations to contribute her expertise globally. Specifically, and most recently, an academic at the Universidad de San Sebastian in Chile wrote a grant to enable her to visit the university and do a series of trainings for disability-related professionals as well as to help other academics with their research in the area of augmentative and alternative communication.
Dr. Bhana-Lopez is dedicated to ensuring that strategies and materials are culturally responsive. She has recently been working with her colleague, Gabriela Rangel, a Mexican researcher and clinician living in Spain, to translate and culturally adapt the POWR strategies developed by Sarah Douglas at Michigan State University. This is currently being tested and they are working to elicit and respond to feedback from caregivers in Mexico. With the same colleague, Dr. Bhana-Lopez has also published a paper in the DISES Journal (JISNE) on the barriers and facilitators faced by caregivers in Panama.
Her passion for supporting caregivers and professionals in the US and abroad drives her work. Dr. Bhana-Lopez has written about and presented on supporting Muslim families in the US and abroad, in addition to the other work described above. She thrives on the feedback that she receives from caregivers and professionals after a training when they learn more about how to support their children and students, and she is dedicated to continuing this work.
She welcomes hearing from others interested in this work, and can be reached at: naima.bhana@usu.edu