Beatrice H. Barrett, 74, died in peaceful relief at her Lincoln home on September 4, 2003, after nearly 10 years of encountering and partnering with cancers and severe emphysema. A regular exerciser, avid sailor, ballet aficionado, art supporter, and conservationist, her profession of human behavior analysis focused the greater part of her life, beginning with a specialized post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, where she did pioneering laboratory studies of learning in people with mental retardation. At his invitation, she became a regular participant in B. F. Skinner's laboratory meetings and thus joined the family of operant conditioners making behavioral science history in and around the Cambridge area. She built her own laboratory at The Fernald School, where residents used the automated lab daily, then participated in classroom experiences fashioned on their lab findings and the teaching adaptations that made them successful. Numerous instructional developments from that period are used today in the country's advanced programs for special education. Dr. Barrett's work was recognized by the Massachusetts Psychological Association when it gave the Ezra Saul Award to its first female recipient in 1979 and by the Standard Celeration Society with its Lifetime Contribution Award in 1997.

     A graduate of the University of Arizona (BA), The University of Kentucky (MA), and Purdue University (PhD), Dr. Barrett was elected to Phi Kappa Phi and was an active member of Sigma Xi and numerous science and professional organizations. Dr. Barrett joined the Psychiatry Department of Indiana University Medical School as Chief Psychologist of its Children's Outpatient and Consultation Service where she trained residents in both Psychiatry and Pediatrics and conducted a private practice. She also did research at the Institute for Psychiatric Research, where she was deeply influenced by Charles Ferster, who, having run Skinner's lab, was then establishing a child schizophrenia lab in one of the hospitals where Dr. Barrett was consulting. Thus began the series of contacts that eventuated in her invitation to Harvard and a retreading of her career from clinician to laboratory researcher with Ogden Lindsley, who first applied Skinner's methods to analysis of human behavior.

     Long past retirement, she maintained her research into the field of behavior analysis and served for over 20 years on the board of The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, where she became a lifetime Senior Fellow. The B. F. Skinner Foundation elected her to its board and invited her to write a foreword for its reprinting of Skinner's The Technology of Teaching.

     Barrett's lifelong involvement with the arts and the environment will become public after her death. She has always remained an anonymous donor, hoping to maintain the privacy that has marked her lifestyle.

     At sea, she found strength in its solitary bond, her most fulfilling life force.

     Dr. Barrett is survived by her brother, Richard Barrett from Washington, DC. Contributions may be made to the Nature Conservancy Barrett Fund, Vineyard Haven, MA.

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