Denise Boots

About

Dr. Denise Paquette Boots is the Senior Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education in the School of Economic, Policy & Policy Sciences, a Professor of Public Policy and Political Economy, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Urban Policy Research at the University of Texas at Dallas. She received her doctorate from the University of South Florida in 2006.

Dr. Boots is a former U.S. Border Patrol Agent trainee and a Level 4 juvenile counselor for adjudicated youth. She has been at UT Dallas for 18 years. Her research and teaching focuses on interpersonal violence, with an emphasis on domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, campus sexual assault, mental health, capital punishment, human trafficking, gender pathways to crime and victimization, parricide, and outcome and process evaluations of courts and criminal justice programs. She has published over 50 books, chapters, and articles and has been awarded over $1.8 million for private and publicly sponsored research projects. She is the former President of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences from 2022-2023. Dr. Boots has been recognized for her excellence in research and teaching with several prestigious awards, including the UT Dallas President’s Teaching Excellence Award, the University of Texas Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, and the Minnie Stevens Piper Professor of Texas award.

From March 2022 through March 2023, she served as President of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, one of two national associations within criminology and criminal justice in the United States. She hosted her annual meeting, with a theme on social justice, civil rights, and crime, in March 2023 in National Harbor, Maryland.

Dr. Boots has a distinguished history of recognition for her excellence in both teaching and research. In 2010, she was an inaugural awardee of the University of Texas Board of Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, its highest award. In May 2016, she was awarded the UT Dallas President’s Teaching Excellence Award for tenured faculty. In May of 2020, Dr. Boots was named a Minnie Piper Stevens Professor of 2020; this award is one of 10 awarded annually in Texas, recognizing excellence in scholarship and teaching. She has conducted over 100 interviews in local and national media. She is frequently called upon as a consultant to various non-profit, government, and community organizations as a court-certified expert and invited speaker on family violence, human trafficking, sexual assault, mental health, and child abuse.