Dr E. Scott Geller

E. Scott Geller, Ph.D., retired in May 2025 as Alumni Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, and Director of the Center for Applied Behavior Systems (CABS), after a long and distinguished career in the university’s Department of Psychology. He is co-founder and Senior Partner of Safety Performance Solutions, Inc., a training and consulting organisation specialising in behaviour-based safety since 1995.

He is co-founder of GellerAC4P with his daughter Dr. Krista S. Geller, a training/consulting firm dedicated to teaching and spreading the Actively Caring for People (AC4P) Movement worldwide, and co-founder of the nonprofit Actively Caring for People Foundation.

Scott has authored, edited or co-authored 55 books, 105 book chapters, 41 training manuals, 308 magazine articles, and 245 research articles addressing the development and evaluation of behaviour-focused interventions to improve quality of life on a large scale.

Throughout his career, Scott has received numerous awards, including a teaching award from the American Psychological Association in 1982 and every university-wide teaching award offered at Virginia Tech. He was honoured with the University Alumni Award for Excellence in Research in 2001, the Alumni Outreach Award in 2002, and the Alumni Award for Graduate Student Advising in 2003. He received the Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award in 2005 and was named an Alumni Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech. In 2024, he was recognized as a “Top Scholar” by ScholarGPS.

Dr. Geller is a Fellow of several prestigious organisations, including the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science and the Association of Behavior Analysis International. He has served as Editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Associate Editor of Environment and Behavior, and Consulting Editor for multiple journals. He has also received lifetime achievement awards from the International Organizational Behavior Management Network and the American Psychological Foundation.

In recognition of his influence in the field of safety and health, EHS Today named Dr. Geller one of the 50 Most Influential People in Safety and Health in 2010 and 2013. In 2019, he was honoured with the Nathan H. Azrin Distinguished Contributions to Applied Behavior Analysis Award by the American Psychological Association. Dr. Geller also received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the College of Wooster in 2011. In 2024, the Virginia Association for Behavior Analysis (VABA) established the annual E. Scott Geller Award for Distinguished Service to Applied Behavior Science.