Ms. Yasmin Nielsen is a 4th year clinical psychology graduate student at Southern Illinois University. She graduated from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology, with a minor in Cognitive Science. Prior to attending SIU, she worked as a behavioral health specialist at an inpatient psychiatric unit, and later as a research coordinator at the University of Utah's School of Medicine in a diagnostic neuroimaging lab, investigating mood disorders in substance-abusing women. Her research interests are broadly centered on offender risk assessment and severe mental illness. She is currently working on her doctoral dissertation project, which is focused on the relationship between the differential impact of serious mental illness among the five levels of criminal risk.