Savana Bak, MS, PhD

Assistant professor
Special education program
Department of Educational Psychology

Faculty page

Portrait by WY, age 10

If I were an intervention, which one would I be?

Self-monitoring

Research Interests:

  • Multimodal communication
  • Cultural/international adaptations of language and social communication interventions
  • Evidence-based practices and how we define them
  • Open-access caregiver training for under-resourced caregivers
  • Autism research for under-represented communities

Planned, Current, and Completed Projects:

  • Planned: Mindfulness intervention for caregivers and minimally-verbal autistic children (PI)
  • Current: Online training module for caregivers of autistic children (PI)
  • Current: Interaction analysis of caregiver/children dyads in family settings (PI)
  • Completed: Vocalization of autistic children in school environments (PI)
  • Completed: Neurodivergent adults’ perceptions towards early intervention (Co PI)
  • Completed: Focus group analysis of caregiver attitudes towards caregiver training (Co PI)

Graduate Advisees:

  • Amber Reilly, PhD student (Fall 2020 – current)
  • Qichao Zoe Pan, PhD student (Fall 2021 – current)
  • Kinyuy Irene Lila, MA student (Fall 2022 – current)
  • Lalinne Bell, PhD student (Fall 2022 – current)