Christopher A. Varnon

I am an Assistant Professor of Behavior Analysis at the University of North Texas (UNT), home to one of the earliest departments devoted to behavior analysis and among the first undergraduate and graduate programs in the field. I completed my PhD in experimental psychology at Oklahoma State University under the supervision of Dr. Charles Abramson. Previously, I received a master's degree in behavior analysis from the University of North Texas under the supervision of Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz, and bachelor's degrees in biology and psychology at Jacksonville State University where I worked with Dr. George Cline and Dr. William Palya. Before joining the faculty at UNT, I was an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Converse University.

My department at UNT offers a Bachelors, Masters, and PhD in behavior analysis. I am also affiliated with UNT’s interdisciplinary Advanced Environmental Science Research Institute, and the Environmental Science MS program. Check out the lab page if you are interested in learning more or joining my lab.

My research sits at the intersection of psychology and biology, with a focus on behavioral and physiological processes that cut across species and contexts. I have three core research areas.

My primary research area is animal behavior and learning. I have worked with a wide range of species, from honey bees to horses, in homes, farms, zoos, and the wild, including several years as a zookeeper at the Birmingham Zoo, Dallas Zoo, Fort Worth Zoo, and Frank Buck Zoo. I am especially interested in studying underrepresented species, with a particular emphasis on practical invertebrate laboratory models like cockroaches and crayfish. This line of research primarily focuses on learning but also makes connections to behavioral neuroscience and behavioral ecology.

A second area focuses on quantitative and computational approaches to behavior and learning. If we truly understand the processes that govern behavior, we should be able to model and simulate them. This would not only validate our understanding, but allow sophisticated predictions about future behavior. One current interest is machine reinforcement learning, a computational framework where artificial agents learn through experience in ways that closely parallel how real organisms learn. This area has received surprisingly little attention from behavior analysis. I am interested in expanding these connections through theoretical, simulated, and empirical work.

My third area is educational research. Behavior analysis is the science of learning, and the principles that govern how organisms acquire, maintain, and generalize behavior also apply to the classroom. I’m interested in how biological and behavioral science can be taught more effectively, and how live animals and quantitative simulations can be integrated into the classroom as active learning experiences.

Across these areas, I often design my own research equipment, software, and analysis tools. Because many of the questions I study fall outside the scope of commercially available systems, building new methods is often an important part of the research process. This website includes information about my equipment and software that may be useful for students, educators, and researchers with similar interests.

If you want to know more, feel free to send me an email. You can also check out my CV (updated June 2025), or these podcast interviews I did with Animal Training Academy.Podcast Part 1. Podcast Part 2.

Contact:

Christopher A. Varnon
Assistant Professor
Department of Behavior Analysis
University of North Texas
1155 Union Circle, Denton, TX 76205
Christopher.Varnon@UNT.edu