Dr. Mia M. Ricardo is a Licensed Psychologist in Maine and Massachusetts, is a Designated Forensic Psychologist in Massachusetts, and is credentialed with the National Register of Health Service Psychologists. She specializes in issues of competency to stand trial (fitness to proceed), criminal responsibility (sanity), general and sexual violence risk, among other psycho-legal questions, and can provide trial consultation on topics of mental health in legal cases. In 2024, Dr. Ricardo completed the National Qualified Representatives Training program for the Executive Office for Immigration Review to conduct competency to proceed to immigration court evaluations. Dr. Ricardo can also provide psychological testing for the purposes of diagnosis and treatment recommendations.

Dr. Ricardo earned her bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Southern Maine, and both her master’s and PhD in Clinical Psychology from Sam Houston State University. Her doctoral program focused on excellence in generalist training, with specializations in testing and psychological assessment, work in inpatient and forensic settings, and forensic mental health evaluations. Throughout her graduate education she learned to conduct forensic mental health evaluations on issues of competency, sanity, diminished capacity, sexual violence risk for civil commitment, and provided competency restoration treatment for those with serious mental illness in the legal system.

Following graduation with her PhD in Clinical Psychology, Dr. Ricardo accepted an elective specialized training year as a postdoctoral resident in forensic psychology at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Chan Medical School’s Law and Psychiatry Program. As a UMass forensic psychology resident at Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital, Bridgewater State Hospital, and Massachusetts court clinics, she trained conducting forensic mental health assessments on issues of competency to stand trial, criminal responsibility, civil commitment, general violence risk, sexual violence risk, civil commitment due to substance use or other mental illness, prisoner in need of treatment, and aid in sentencing evaluations. Throughout the training year, she participated in case law seminars, forensic mental health didactics, research projects, and became a qualified expert witness in district and superior courts across Massachusetts.

Academically, Dr. Ricardo has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in clinical psychology, has an ongoing battery of research projects, has won grants and awards for her research activities, and routinely presents and publishes research on issues of forensic mental health evaluation and substance use policy. Dr. Ricardo is a research consultant and contract supervisor for the forensic psychology and psychiatry postdoctoral residents at UMass Chan Medical School’s Law and Psychiatry Program. She also serves as an ad hoc reviewer for peer reviewed journals and is the Chair of the Early Career Professionals Committee of the American Psychology – Law Society for the 2023 – 2026 term.