Yesenia Yanez is a criminologist specializing in violent crime, mass shootings, and terrorism. Before attending UMD, she earned her BA in Psychology and BS in Statistics, with a minor in criminal justice. She has since earned her PhD and MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland, where her research applied situational crime prevention and routine activity theories to examine the conditions that facilitate mass shootings and terrorist violence. Her master's thesis reconstructed routine activity theory to better understand the situational factors influencing mass shooting severity, while her doctoral research expanded on offender decision-making in terrorism.

Dr. Yanez has collaborated with leading scholars, including researchers at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), and contributed to studies on the determinants of worldwide homicide and terrorism. She has presented her findings at national and international conferences, including the Stockholm Criminology Symposium, and her work has been published in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice and The Routledge Handbook on Radicalisation and Countering Radicalisation. In recognition of her contributions to criminological research, she received the Outstanding Research Assistant Award (2023).

Her research interests include crime prevention, offender decision-making, and the application of criminological theory to understand and mitigate violent crime.