Meet the Staff of MBC

Kristen is an experienced educational and clinical leader with over 20 years of delivering behavioral, therapeutic, and educational services to children and families across Long Island and New York City. She has specialized in supporting individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder and intellectual and developmental disabilities, utilizing evidence-based practices including Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA).

Currently serving as Executive Director at The Manhattan Behavioral Center, Kristen oversees the agency’s full operations, ensuring high-quality services, staff development, and organizational growth. Previously, she managed programs across commercial insurance, county, NYSED, and OPWDD funding, supervised teams of Board Certified and Licensed Behavior Analysts, led managed care and educationally based service programs, and implemented best practices for staff training and development.

Kristen earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from St. John’s University, a Master’s in Education from American InterContinental University, and an Advanced Certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis from the University of North Texas. She is passionate about advancing access to high-quality services, mentoring professionals, and supporting individuals with developmental differences to reach their full potential.

Jon has been in the field, utilizing the methods of ABA for over 15 years. He started at MCC in 2009 as an ABA instructor and worked his way up to head instructor and then lead teacher. He moved over to MBC in 2017 as the comprehensive program supervisor and is now the Director of Education. He has his bachelor’s in Psychology form the University of Massachusetts, master’s is in Early Childhood Special Education from Hunter College and has a BCBA and LBA-NY.

Megan has been working in the field of special education since 2006 and joined MBC in the fall of 2017. She received her BS degree in Psychology from James Madison University followed by her Master of Education with ABA certificate from George Mason University. She has been a Board Certified Behavior Analyst since 2014 and has enjoyed growing and evolving with the field of ABA. She is especially passionate about training and mentoring staff to become compassionate, skilled therapists and future BCBAs.

Jessy has been with the organization for 10 years, with over six of those at MBC. She worked as a therapist in the classroom at MCC before beginning her career as a BCBA at MBC. She earned her master’s in ABA from Queen’s College and is also a Licensed Behavior Analyst in New York. She has a wide range of experience and has provided services in the classroom, in centers, in the community and in clients’ homes. She is passionate about teaching functional skills that will help individuals gain independence in their everyday lives. She also loves guiding staff as they learn new skills and apply them to make huge differences in their student’s lives.

Christopher Colasurdo received his Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. In 2018, he received a Master of Arts degree in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) at Caldwell University and in 2024 he received his doctorate degree from Caldwell University. He has worked as a lead trainer at The Caldwell University Center for Autism and Applied Behavior Analysis and as a BCBA at Bergen County Special Services. Currently, he is teaching as an adjunct lecturer at Caldwell University and Hunter College. He has numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and is the co-author on an Applied Behavior Analysis textbook chapter. His research interests include stimulus control, equivalence class formation, error correction, and observational learning and his personal interests include sports and gaming.