Erin Rasmussen earned her Ph.D. from Auburn University in Experimental Psychology. After she graduated, she taught in the Department of Psychology at the College of Charleston (Charleston, SC) for three years as an assistant professor. She currently is a professor of psychology at Idaho State University's Department of Psychology and has resided in Pocatello, ID since 2004.
Rasmussen's research interests tie together health, behavioral economics, and behavioral pharmacology. She has two laboratories (human and animal) that investigate decision-making involved in obesity and health. Her human work focuses on behavioral economic and socioeconomic factors related to food-based delay discounting. (You can watch a YouTube on this topic that was presented at the Society for the Quantitative Analysis of Behavior here.) Her animal work investigates the role of the dopaminergic neurotransmitter system in the value of food reinforcement and establishment of food cues with diet-induced and genetic rodent models of obesity. She was awarded a three-year research grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate the relations among food insecurity, obesity, and food impulsivity. You can access some of her recently published studies by clicking here.
Rasmussen has also served as Associate Editor for Perspectives on Behavior Science (2015-2019) and recently the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (2022-2025) and Learning & Behavior (2023-2026). She was elected President of the Association for Behavior Analysis International for a three-year term (2019-2022). She is co-author of the 7th edition of the textbook Behavior Analysis and Learning: A Biobehavioral Approach (2023) with Drs. Casey Clay, Carl Cheney, and David Pierce and co-editor for the the book Women in Behavior Science: Observations on Life Inside and Outside the Academy (2023) with Drs. Ruth Anne Rehfeldt and Traci Cihon.
Rasmussen teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Learning & Behavior, Food and Behavior, Psychopharmacology, and Senior Seminar.
In her spare time, Rasmussen enjoys hiking, skiing (downhill and XC), traveling, SUPing, reading, and spending time with her family, friends, and three dogs. She is also a certified Zumba® instructor in Pocatello and has taught for the GET-FIT and Group Fitness programs at ISU.
Rasmussen's research interests tie together health, behavioral economics, and behavioral pharmacology. She has two laboratories (human and animal) that investigate decision-making involved in obesity and health. Her human work focuses on behavioral economic and socioeconomic factors related to food-based delay discounting. (You can watch a YouTube on this topic that was presented at the Society for the Quantitative Analysis of Behavior here.) Her animal work investigates the role of the dopaminergic neurotransmitter system in the value of food reinforcement and establishment of food cues with diet-induced and genetic rodent models of obesity. She was awarded a three-year research grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate the relations among food insecurity, obesity, and food impulsivity. You can access some of her recently published studies by clicking here.
Rasmussen has also served as Associate Editor for Perspectives on Behavior Science (2015-2019) and recently the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (2022-2025) and Learning & Behavior (2023-2026). She was elected President of the Association for Behavior Analysis International for a three-year term (2019-2022). She is co-author of the 7th edition of the textbook Behavior Analysis and Learning: A Biobehavioral Approach (2023) with Drs. Casey Clay, Carl Cheney, and David Pierce and co-editor for the the book Women in Behavior Science: Observations on Life Inside and Outside the Academy (2023) with Drs. Ruth Anne Rehfeldt and Traci Cihon.
Rasmussen teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Learning & Behavior, Food and Behavior, Psychopharmacology, and Senior Seminar.
In her spare time, Rasmussen enjoys hiking, skiing (downhill and XC), traveling, SUPing, reading, and spending time with her family, friends, and three dogs. She is also a certified Zumba® instructor in Pocatello and has taught for the GET-FIT and Group Fitness programs at ISU.