Denise Paquette Boots received her B.A. (1995), M.A. (2001), and Ph.D. (2006) in Criminology from the University of South Florida and is currently an Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is a former juvenile residential counselor for adjudicated youth, Border Patrol Agent trainee, and Pre-Doctoral Fellow with the National Consortium on Violence Research. She previously served as Graduate Director and Associate Chair at UT Dallas. Her present research focuses around violence and public policy, with an emphasis on neuropsychological correlates of violence, life-course perspectives, mental health, child abuse, domestic violence, parricide, capital punishment, youth crime, and intersections of race, gender, and ethnicity. In 2009, Dr. Boots was one of nine tenure-track professors across the University of Texas system chosen to receive the prestigious UT Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award for excellence in the classroom. Her professional service activities include serving as the Faculty Mentor to the Terry Scholars Program, on the Editorial Board of the journal Violence Against Women, as the inaugural president of the UT Dallas chapter of the National Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, and as a consultant to various non-profit organizations and local and national media outlets on topics related to violence.