CASP’s new government affairs director, Lumary’s new CEO, and Duke’s new autism center director lead the Q3 2026 roundup of ABA leadership appointments.
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The third quarter of 2026 brought another steady run of leadership changes across Applied Behavior Analysis and the wider behavioral health field. A trade association added policy staff, software companies recruited clinicians and operators out of provider organizations, and several providers promoted people who had spent most of their careers inside them.
The moves came as the 2027 CPT code set for adaptive behavior services was published and scrutiny of Medicaid ABA spending continued, including a state toolkit CMS released in August reporting that Medicaid and CHIP spending on ABA grew 421 percent between 2021 and 2025. They extend a record Acuity News began in the first quarter and continued in the second.
The list also includes a few appointments that began in June but surfaced after the second-quarter installment was published, and one, announced in September, that takes effect October 1.
Third-Quarter 2026 ABA and Behavioral Health Appointments
Rebecca Thompson, Ph.D., BCBA-D | Director of Government Affairs, Council of Autism Service Providers (CASP)
The Council of Autism Service Providers hired Dr. Rebecca Thompson as Director of Government Affairs, announcing the appointment on September 15, 2026. A licensed psychologist and Doctoral-Level Board Certified Behavior Analyst, Thompson comes from a long tenure at LEARN Behavioral, most recently as Vice President of Advocacy, where she coordinated government affairs work across the 17 states in which the provider operates. She is CASP’s second Director of Government Affairs hire this year, following Rebecca Giammatti in February.
Lori Ludwig, Ph.D. | Executive Director, Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies
The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies named Dr. Lori Ludwig its next Executive Director, effective October 1, 2026. She succeeds Rob Holdsambeck, who will work with her through the transition. A Trustee of the Massachusetts nonprofit since 2012, Ludwig has spent more than 25 years in organizational behavior management, the branch of behavior analysis concerned with workplaces and organizations. She is Chief Quality Officer at Performance Ally, founded the consultancy Performance Blueprints, and served as Executive Director of the Organizational Behavior Management Network from 2021 to 2024. Board Chair Thomas L. Zane, Ph.D., BCBA-D, announced the appointment in a letter to colleagues.
Lauren Franz, MBChB, MPH | Director, Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development
Duke University named Dr. Lauren Franz Director of the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development after a national search, effective July 6, 2026. A child and adolescent psychiatrist, Franz had led the center on an interim basis since 2024, when Founding Director Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., stepped back from the role. Her research includes early autism intervention in low-resource settings, with a focus on Africa. Her appointment took effect weeks before the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee adopted its 2026-2028 strategic plan on August 27.
Jenn Schwartz | President and Chief Executive Officer, ChristianaCare
Jenn Schwartz became President and Chief Executive Officer of ChristianaCare, Delaware’s largest health system, on September 1, 2026, succeeding Janice Nevin, M.D., who retired after 12 years in the role. An attorney by training, Schwartz joined ChristianaCare in 2018 as Chief Legal Officer and most recently served as Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, a portfolio that included value-based care, ambulatory expansion, and partnerships. She was previously General Counsel of New Jersey’s Lourdes Health System.
Daniel Wyner | Chief Executive Officer, Lumary
Lumary, which sells care management software to disability and aged care providers in Australia and to ABA providers in the United States, announced in early July that it had named Daniel Wyner its Chief Executive Officer. He succeeds founder Joseph Mercorella, who moved into a Board Director role. Wyner spent nearly eight years at the ASX-listed software company ReadyTech, where he led two business units before serving as Chief Strategy and Growth Officer. Lumary counts among its U.S. customers Behavioral Framework, the provider that published six months of outcomes data for 1,090 children.
Laura Hinson | Chief Financial Officer, Acorn Health
Acorn Health named Laura Hinson its Chief Financial Officer, announcing the hire on July 7, 2026. Hinson brings more than 20 years in healthcare finance, most recently as Chief Financial Officer for Medical Group Services at LifePoint Health and, before that, as Chief Financial Officer of PhyNet Dermatology. Headquartered in Coral Gables, Acorn operates centers in seven states, including Florida, where a legislatively created ABA task force began reviewing Medicaid spending on the therapy in August.
April Bailey | Director of Payor Relations and Credentialing, Acorn Health
April Bailey returned to Acorn Health in September 2026 as Director of Payor Relations and Credentialing, eight months after leaving for BlueSprig, where she was Director of Contracting and Payer Engagement. She had spent more than six years as Acorn’s Payor Relations Manager, and wrote that leaving had not closed that chapter of her career. Her function covers payer contracting and enrollment, work that sits alongside tasks such as benefits verification that still run largely on phone calls.
Bailey Spradlin, MA, BCBA, LBA | Director of Clinical Operations, Stride Autism Centers
Bailey Spradlin joined Stride Autism Centers as Director of Clinical Operations in July 2026, after more than nine years at Acorn Health. She started there in 2017 as a Registered Behavior Technician in Saginaw, Michigan, and rose to Regional Director of Clinical Operations for Illinois and Tennessee. Stride provides up to full-day, center-based ABA for children ages two through six at centers across Iowa.
Claire Ledford, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA | Chief Operating Officer, Amaze ABA Therapy
Claire Ledford was promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Amaze ABA Therapy in August 2026, six months after joining the Atlanta-based provider as Director of Operations. Amaze delivers in-home ABA in Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia. A behavior analyst for 12 years, Ledford previously held compliance and operations roles at BlueSprig, Butterfly Effects, and CentralReach. She described a path from clinician to clinical leader to operational leader to executive, a progression for which the field has few formal development programs.
Jessica Swanson | Chief Clinical Officer, Hipp Health
Hipp Health named Jessica Swanson its first Chief Clinical Officer in August 2026. Swanson joined the San Francisco software company as Head of Business Development in July 2025 and is also the founder of Summit Health Services, an ABA provider in California, Texas, and Virginia that Hipp Co-Founder David Connors said was among its earliest customers. Hipp, which raised a $6.2 million seed round led by RTP Global in October 2025, uses AI to automate documentation, scheduling, and billing, the administrative load behavior analysts often cite in discussions of burnout.
Diana Baekey | Senior Vice President, Children’s Services and Strategy, May Institute
Diana Baekey’s role at May Institute expanded in August 2026 to Senior Vice President, Children’s Services and Strategy, adding organization-wide strategy to the children’s services she has overseen since joining the Randolph, Massachusetts, nonprofit in 2024. Baekey previously led clinical operations at Intercare Therapy and clinical quality and outcomes at Opya, and spent 16 years in special education with Georgia’s Gwinnett County Public Schools. May Institute operates more than 130 service locations.
Megan Nemeth | Regional Vice President, Cultivate Behavioral Health & Education
Megan Nemeth left InBloom Autism Services, where she had been Regional Vice President since 2024, for the same title at Cultivate Behavioral Health & Education in August 2026, covering Wisconsin and Illinois. She described the move as bringing her work closer to home. Her earlier operations roles include By Your Side Autism Therapy Services and the Center for Autism and Related Disorders. Cultivate operates in 11 states and in September went live on Hi Rasmus and Lumary across that network. In Wisconsin, providers recently reported roughly 400 pending Medicaid prior authorization requests.
Melissa Sallustio, M.S., M.Ed., BCBA | Vice President of Compliance, Training, and Clinical Quality, Momentum Behavior Services
Melissa Sallustio joined Momentum Behavior Services on June 1, 2026, as Vice President of Compliance, Training, and Clinical Quality. A behavior analyst with more than 18 years in the field, she spent five years at Jade Health, rising to Vice President of Product and Compliance, a role she held through CASP’s acquisition of Jade, announced in January. The move reunites her with former Jade Chief Operating Officer Jenna Kokoski, who joined Momentum in the same role earlier this year. Momentum serves families in Minnesota and California.
Jennifer Bartell, BCBA, LBA | Director of Quality and Compliance, The Place for Children with Autism
Jennifer Bartell was promoted to Director of Quality and Compliance at The Place for Children with Autism in August 2026, eight years after joining the Chicago-area provider as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. She had led clinical training as Associate Director since 2021. The Place provides full-day, center-based ABA in a preschool-style setting. Federal audits of Medicaid ABA payments have turned largely on documentation, the ground such roles cover.
Alyssa Newsome, MA, BCBA, LBA | Director of Clinical Operations, Avid-ABA
Alyssa Newsome was promoted to Director of Clinical Operations at Avid-ABA in September 2026, six years after joining the Michigan provider as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. She served as Clinical Director and then Regional Director. Avid, formerly Attendant Care Autism Services, runs centers from Detroit to Port Huron. Her new title sits where clinical and operational management meet, a boundary many ABA organizations are still defining.
Julie Richardson | Director of Service Operations, Arizona Autism United (AZA United)
Julie Richardson was promoted to Director of Service Operations at Arizona Autism United in July 2026. She joined the Phoenix nonprofit in 2019 as a Temporary Administrative Assistant and worked through billing, quality assurance, and service coordination roles. Founded in 2006, AZA United provides ABA and other therapies alongside Division of Developmental Disabilities services such as habilitation and respite, which depend on a direct support workforce that Acuity has reported is losing workers faster than it can replace them.
Valerie Knowles, MBA | Director of People and Purpose, FirstSteps for Kids
Valerie Knowles joined FirstSteps for Kids, a California ABA provider founded in 2005, as Director of People and Purpose in August 2026. She spent the previous seven years as Regional Human Resources Director at the accounting firm Eide Bailly, which she joined through its acquisition of Vavrinek, Trine, Day & Co. She moves into ABA as some providers have rebuilt staffing models to keep clinicians longer.
Jason Theo Arvanites | Vice President of Operations, Camber
Camber hired Jason Theo Arvanites as Vice President of Operations in August 2026. He was most recently Chief Clinical Operations Officer at the AI radiology company Imagen Technologies, and before that spent seven years at the transportation technology company Via and four at Bain & Company. In materials Camber published to introduce him, including a Q&A, he said he saw a chance to use technology “to take some of the administrative burden off clinicians.” The revenue cycle company acquired ABA automation firm Async Lambda in September.
Alison Karen | Enterprise Strategy, Camber
Camber also added Alison Karen to its Enterprise Strategy team in September 2026. Karen spent nearly five years at the mental health care company Headway, most recently as Senior Revenue Strategy Associate, and wrote that at Camber she would approach the billing problems that affect access to care from a new angle. Acuity profiled Camber in March, when Co-Founder Nathan Lee described a platform built to predict whether a claim will be paid before it is submitted.
Shae Young, MS | Head of Customer Success, Frontera Health
Shae Young started as Head of Customer Success at Frontera Health in the last week of September 2026, joining from Notable, where she spent two years helping health systems automate administrative work with AI. She began her career as a therapist in wilderness therapy, county mental health, and juvenile justice programs. Frontera, a Denver company that sells AI assessment and diagnostic report tools to ABA clinics, has also announced an early-detection program with LinusBio.
Rob Hancock | Accounting and FP&A Manager, Frontera Health
Frontera also hired Rob Hancock as Accounting and FP&A Manager in Denver in September 2026 to help build its finance and accounting function. Hancock joins from Achieve, where he was Strategic Finance Manager, and previously spent five years in financial analysis at Fidelity Investments. Frontera sells its assessment software by the token rather than the seat, a model Chief Executive Officer Amol Deshpande has set against incumbent vendor pricing.
Sara Gershfeld | Interim Chief Revenue Officer, TheraDriver
Sara Gershfeld served from June through September as Interim Chief Revenue Officer at TheraDriver, leading its commercial work while Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Malavica Sridhar was on parental leave, and has since returned to her role as a Strategic Advisor for the company. TheraDriver, which Acuity profiled in June, sells AI scheduling software for ABA providers that runs on top of their existing EMRs. Gershfeld founded Jade Health and led it as Chief Executive Officer until CASP acquired its holdings, including the Behavioral Health Center of Excellence, in a deal announced in January. She also advises Onos Health, investment firm Rubicon Founders, and serves as a Strategic Advisor to Acuity Media Network.
Cara Lechleiter | Head of Partnerships and Strategic Accounts, Motivity
Cara Lechleiter became Head of Partnerships and Strategic Accounts at Motivity in August 2026, after building the ABA software company’s sales and customer success functions. A behavior analyst who spent nearly 13 years at the New England Center for Children, she wrote Motivity’s August 12 announcement of its AI assessment integration with Frontera. The Honolulu-based company acquired practice management platform Calmanac in May.
Katie Meyer | Director of Clinical Solutions, Passage Health
Katie Meyer joined Passage Health as Director of Clinical Solutions in September 2026 after nearly 14 years at Lighthouse Autism Center, where she rose from Registered Behavior Technician to Vice President of Clinical Operations. She wrote that she is most interested in working with the founders and owners who build ABA organizations. Passage, an all-in-one clinical and practice management platform for ABA providers, named Chris Cheesman its first Head of Finance earlier this year.
Nichole Joyce | Senior Clinical Product Expert, RethinkFirst
Nichole Joyce joined RethinkFirst as a Senior Clinical Product Expert in August 2026 after four years at the virtual ABA provider AnswersNow, most recently as Senior Director of Clinical Care Delivery. She wrote that she wants to turn clinical and payer requirements into technology that gives behavior analysts more time with clients. RethinkFirst has been led by Chief Executive Officer Dinesh Senanayake since March.
