Nancy Olesen
Nancy W. Olesen, Ph.D. graduated in psychology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She has conducted over 150 child custody and dependency evaluations for the courts in California and has provided expert testimony in child custody cases throughout California and other states in the US.
Dr. Olesen has taught many courses in best practices in child custody evaluation for professionals in California, including the mandatory training required for court appointed evaluators. In addition she has taught courses in child custody issues such as child abuse, alienation, domestic violence and attachment for judges and attorneys and mediators throughout the US, as well as in Hong Kong and Sweden. She has collaborated on a number of professional articles about custody evaluation, alienation and domestic violence as well as an upcoming book and has served on several national advisory councils for the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.
She is a co-author (with Leslie Drozd, Ph.D. and Michael Saini, Ph.D.) of the 2013 book, Parenting Plan and Child Custody Evaluations: Using Decision Trees to Increase Evaluator Competence & Avoid Preventable Errors. She also coedited the 2016 book (with Leslie Drozd and Michael Saini) Parenting Plan Evaluations: Applied Research for the Family Court, 2nd ed.