Meet Our President & Founder

About

Dr. Michelle Hoy-Watkins, ABPP. is a licensed clinical psychologist who is board certified in police and public safety psychology. Dr. Hoy-Watkins has close to 25 years of experience providing clinical, forensic, and police & public safety psychological services. As a police psychologist, her work has included conducting pre-employment psychological screenings, fitness for duty evaluations, campus and workplace violence risk and threat assessment, and relevant trainings for various law enforcement agencies. Dr. Hoy-Watkins has extensive expertise conducting competency to stand trial, competency to participate in immigration proceedings, criminal responsibility, sentencing and mitigation and juvenile transfer waiver cases. She has served as an expert witness in county, state, and federal court proceedings.

In January 2016, Dr. Hoy-Watkins was hired as Northwestern University’s first Director of Threat Assessment.  In her role, she led the university’s multidisciplinary threat assessment team to mitigate the potential for campus violence, provided indirect threat assessments and direct violence risk evaluations of individuals who impacted the personal safety of students and other community members.  Prior to Northwestern, Dr. Hoy-Watkins served as Chair of the Department of Forensic Psychology at The Chicago School of Psychology. Through her work at The Chicago School’s Forensic Center, she developed and implemented a school-based violence prevention program for students at risk for delinquency in Chicago Public Schools and alternative schools. Dr. Hoy-Watkins has worked for the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners (post-doctoral fellow) and the Elgin Mental Health Center – Forensic Treatment Program.  She has also served as a medical consultant for the Social Security Administration Regional Office where she conducts mental health disability quality reviews. Dr. Hoy-Watkins has served as an adjunct professor at the Suburban Law Enforcement Academy at the College of DuPage. She is an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University's Department of Clinical Psychiatry and Behavior Sciences, Forensic Division.​​