Goodbye teacher, good old friend.

Smith (1996) tells a short story. Fred Keller flew to Brazil in 1961 on a Fulbright grant.

He gave lectures, met students, and shared the brand-new science of behavior analysis.

The paper calls the trip a lucky accident that grew into a whole national field.

The visit did not collect data. It planted seeds.

Years later Brazil had its own behavior-analysis professors, journals, and conferences.

One short trip can start a chain reaction that lasts decades.

Eslava et al. (2025) extends the same idea. Four women built a brand-new ABA group in Mexico sixty years after Keller’s trip.

Haberlin et al. (2025) shows the next step. Australia turned early exchanges into a full national licensing system.

Simpson et al. (2001) acts as a successor voice. A 2001 panel looked back on twenty-five years of growth and said the field must keep training new people—exactly what Keller started in 1961.

You may never get a Fulbright, but every cross-border contact you make matters. Invite an overseas student to your clinic. Share a data sheet on social media. Coach a foreign colleague through the BACB process. Small acts echo the 1961 trip and keep the global network alive.