DALLAS, TEXAS—On any given morning, Liat Sacks might be recording a podcast episode about the behavioral economics of addiction with a former pimp, reviewing mock exam questions designed to make BCBA candidates laugh hard enough to remember conditioned reinforcement schedules, or texting her co-host about which Bachelor contestant most clearly demonstrates a variable-ratio pattern of social media posting. By noon, she’ll have fielded recruiting inquiries from three ABA clinics looking for staff, approved a new continuing education course on sex and behavior analysis, and reminded her online community of 20,000 professionals that she loves them and means it.

This is the daily operating rhythm of Study Notes ABA, a company Sacks founded in 2018 that has grown from a whiteboard in a dark apartment into a multi-platform enterprise spanning test preparation, professional education, podcasting, and recruiting. She has helped more than 10,000 students pass the BCBA certification exam. Her podcast, Behavior Bitches, has logged nearly 5 million downloads and draws roughly 25,000 listeners per episode. Her tagline—“Real. Raw. Relatable.”—is less a branding exercise than a clinical description of her approach to everything.

“When I am not saving you from the dreaded retest,” she writes on her website, “you can find me drinking a seltzer or iced coffee, reading about a Bachelor in Paradise scandal, or making insta-stories with my dog, Pavlov.” The dog’s name, of course, is on brand.

A Senior Year That Rewrote the Plan

Sacks grew up planning to open a school for children with special needs. She earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees in special education at the University of Maryland College Park, ran easily, snapped open shampoo bottles without thinking, and pulled her bedcovers over herself at night the way people do when the body cooperates without complaint.

Then one morning during winter break of her senior year, she woke up and couldn’t feel her hands. Within hours, her body began to stiffen. A month of consultations—rheumatologists, oncologists, pediatricians—produced a diagnosis: lupus. Her father, Ivan, was simultaneously undergoing stem cell treatment for relapsing lymphoma. The timing was, by any measure, brutal.

Lupus forced Sacks to file for disability accommodations. The immunosuppressive medications made her vulnerable to even minor infections, which meant she couldn’t be around the children she had spent years training to serve. The career she had designed for herself was, functionally, gone.

“People ask questions, but most, they just don’t know. I look normal. I act normal, and for many people, coming to terms with that is difficult,” she told the University of Maryland’s student newspaper at the time. On her wall, she kept a mural of quotes that got her through days spent in bed. One line appeared more than the others: Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.

From Square One to 10,000 Passing Scores

After Maryland, Sacks enrolled in Florida Institute of Technology’s ABA program. After graduating, health problems resurfaced—she has described it publicly as having to “start from square one” again. Her clinical background, spanning special education classrooms, clinics, and in-home services, gave her the content knowledge. What it didn’t give her was a clean path forward.

The path she carved was Study Notes ABA. In 2018, the field of ABA certification prep was, in her telling, stuffy, intimidating, and relentlessly dry. Sacks started recording curriculum on a whiteboard in her apartment. The production quality was minimal. The teaching style was not. She used profanity, pop culture references, and personal stories to make behavioral concepts stick—the kind of examples that make you cringe, laugh, and then realize you actually remember what a motivating operation is three weeks later.

The company’s flagship product is the Collective: a 12-week intensive course covering 24 live classes that walk students through every concept they need for the BCBA or BCaBA exam. Around it, Sacks and her team built mock exams, video bundles, Cooper textbook quizzes, tutoring, a homework packet, and a mobile app with more than 2,500 practice questions, weekly live study groups, gamified leaderboards, and an individualized study plan. The app is available on both iOS and Android.

The merchandise line—because of course there is one—includes “Skinner is my Homeboy” t-shirts, a “Pass The Fucking Test” pen, baby onesies reading “My Parent’s Permanent Product,” and a coloring book titled The Coloring Activities and Sh*t Book. It is, in the most clinical sense, a highly effective pairing strategy. The community that formed around these products—the SNABA tribe, as they call it—became the foundation for everything that followed.

Sacks wearing her speaker badge at a recent ABA industry conference

Five Ventures, One Throughline

Study Notes ABA was the starting point, but Sacks didn’t stop at exam prep. Today she operates five interconnected businesses under the Study Notes ABA umbrella, each addressing a different pain point in the ABA professional lifecycle.

CEUs by Study Notes ABA is a continuing education platform co-founded with Jordan Litt. Approved by the BACB as an ACE Provider, it offers courses taught by a roster of more than 15 instructors across specialties from school-based behavior analysis to sex education to OBM. The course catalog includes an 8-hour supervision requirement course, and topics range from dissemination of ABA to single-case research design—all delivered in the same irreverent style that made the test prep company work.

Behavior Bitches Podcast, co-hosted with Casey McDaniel, BCBA, drops new episodes every other Monday. It applies behavioral analysis to everyday life in a way designed to reach well beyond the ABA echo chamber. Guests have included a forensic BCBA, an ex-pimp discussing behavioral economics, a legal brothel operator, Netflix’s Jewish Matchmaking star Aleeza Ben Shalom, NYT podcast host Dr. Maya Shankar, and an ultra-endurance athlete who runs 100-mile races. The show hit one million downloads at its 100th episode and two-year anniversary; it now approaches 5 million total downloads with roughly 25,000 listeners per episode.

Episode artwork from Behavior Bitches Podcast, powered by Study Notes ABA

PairABA is the recruiting arm—“Pairing top BCBAs with clinics that don’t suck,” as the website states. Built on the back of a community of 20,000-plus ABA professionals, Pair matches candidates to clinics based on clinical fit, cultural alignment, and client needs. It includes a public job board and a dedicated BCBA recruiting team. The model works because Sacks already has the audience and the trust; the recruiting function is a natural extension of the community she built through test prep and podcasting.

Study Notes Technologies is the tech arm of the operation, co-founded by Sacks to develop and maintain the digital products—the SNABA app, platform infrastructure, and digital tools—that power the ecosystem.

Sacks promoting PairABA, the recruiting arm of the Study Notes ABA ecosystem

On the Conference Floor and Behind the Mic

Sacks is a regular presence at ABA conferences. She has attended and presented at TXABA, where Study Notes ABA sets up what she calls the “VIP table”—often in the basement, but always surrounded by current students and alumni. She is listed as an instructor on BehaviorLive and has been featured on the APBA monthly webinar series. She has also been a guest on the Hi Rasmus & Friends podcast and The WarriorHER Podcast, where she discussed building SNABA from a personal study project into a full business.

Her involvement with Friendship Circle Dallas—an organization that creates inclusive events for children with disabilities—connects her professional work to the special education roots she was forced to leave behind after her lupus diagnosis. It’s one of those details that makes the full arc of her story visible: the senior who couldn’t be around kids anymore now runs a company that has trained over 10,000 of the people who work with them.

A scene from a Behavior Bitches recording session—behavioral analysis meets real talk

Pavlov, Kobe, and Shabbat

Sacks is modern Orthodox Jewish and observes Shabbat—a fact she’s discussed openly on the podcast, including an episode where she and a SNABA alum broke down Shabbos traditions through an ABA lens. Her father, Ivan, a financial advisor with 40 years of experience, appeared on the podcast to discuss the behavioral principles behind investing. Her older sister, Talia Solomon, has also been a guest.

Her son, Kobe, is her most visible source of motivation. He does internships at the office and brings energy behind the scenes. “Before having Kobe, I thought I knew what love was,” she has said. “The love you have for your child is incredible.”

And then there’s Pavlov. The dog. Named after the man. Because when your entire professional identity revolves around the science of behavior, you commit to the bit.

The Function of the Whole Thing

The ABA industry is increasingly dominated by private-equity-backed consolidators, credentialing debates, and reimbursement pressure. In that context, what Sacks built is a different kind of infrastructure—not clinical, not financial, but cultural. She created the on-ramp that 10,000 new BCBAs used to enter the field, the podcast where 25,000 listeners per episode hear the science applied to breakups and addiction and surrogacy, the recruiting pipeline that connects those newly certified professionals to jobs, and the CEU platform that keeps them current once they’re there.

It started with a whiteboard in a dark apartment, a diagnosis that closed every door she’d planned to walk through, and a stubborn insistence that behavioral science doesn’t have to be boring. The caterpillar quote on her dormitory wall turned out to be predictive, not just inspirational. Love you. Mean it.

Social Media
Instagram: @studynotesaba / @behaviorbitchespodcast
YouTube: Study Notes ABA
TikTok: @studynotesaba

Podcast Appearances
Hi Rasmus & Friends: Study struggles to ABA success — building SNABA
The WarriorHER Podcast: How a personal study project became a full business

Key Platforms & Products
SNABA App: iOS and Android — 2,500+ questions, live study groups, gamified study plan
The Collective: 12-week intensive, 24 live classes covering full BCBA/BCaBA task list
PairABA: BCBA recruiting — 20,000+ professional community
CEUs by SNABA: BACB ACE Provider (#OP-20-3183), 15+ instructors

Conference Presence
TXABA: Regular exhibitor and speaker
BehaviorLive: Listed instructor
APBA: Monthly webinar series participant

Community
Friendship Circle Dallas: Volunteer — inclusive events for children with disabilities