Her research interests are the opportunity structures of drug markets, violence, white collar crime and crowd disturbances. While working as a research associate for the Police Foundation, she studied the effectiveness of policing strategies to reduce juvenile crime. She also served as the project manager for the Ohio Service for Crime Opportunity Reduction (OSCOR) project, which helps police and communities develop crime reduction strategies and conduct project evaluations. Ms. Madensen received her bachelors and masters degrees from the California State University, San Bernardino.