About
Shreya Mandal JD, LCSW most recently contracted as a capital mitigation specialist with the Military Commissions Defense Organization (MCDO) from 2020 to 2024, where she secured TS/SCI Clearance. She provided capital defense mitigation for a high-value detainee in Guantanamo, Cuba, while working alongside a team of 22+ military and civilian experts. Ms. Mandal became a Certified Veterans and Military Mental Health Counselor while contracting with the Department of Defense. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in New York State.
Ms. Mandal has 28 years of combined forensic and clinical experience, with extensive educational training and field practice. Her foundational training is in capital defense mitigation and she has mitigated 18 death penalty cases to date. She also brings trauma-focused mitigation to non-capital sectors and has worked on a full spectrum of non-capital cases. Ms. Mandal collaborates with human rights organizations and law firms in both public and private sectors. Her interdisciplinary background gives her a holistic approach to trauma-informed mitigation and forensic advocacy. Ms. Mandal's current forensic practices are in the areas of capital defense mitigation, criminal defense mitigation, immigration defense.
Shreya Mandal has been serving as an expert witness since 2005 and has qualified to render expert testimony in both federal and state courts in New York, New Jersey, and Florida. She is designated as an expert witness in numerous specialty areas including, PTSD/Trauma, forensic social work, and as a mitigation expert on death penalty cases. In the immigration sector, Ms. Mandal provides cross-cultural evaluations for families facing extreme hardship and torture. Ms. Mandal has worked with thousands of families, leading to cancellation of removal or asylum in the United States. In 2019, the New York City Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ) appointed Ms. Mandal as an expert witness to the New York Unified Court System 18b panel, in both criminal and family courts, in all five boroughs of New York City. She is also trained as a Part 146 mediator in Alternative Dispute Resolution. Ms. Mandal maintains a New York City-based psychotherapy practice, focusing on global mental health issues.
Ms. Mandal received her Master of Social Work degree from Smith College School for Social Work and a Juris Doctorate degree from Rutgers Law School. She has considerable specialized post-graduate interdisciplinary training. Ms. Mandal is a graduate of Spence Trial Lawyers College, Death Penalty Seminar. She is also a graduate of Harvard Medical School/ Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, where she received post-graduate training in Global Mental Health, Trauma, and Recovery. Ms. Mandal is a Certified EMDR Therapist (Roy Kiessling Chicago). She is also a Clinical Fellow at the National Board of Certified Clinical Hypnotherapists. She is fluent in Bengali.
Through a generous fellowship with the Historical Society of New York Courts, Shreya Mandal was a Judith S. Kaye Visiting Professor in Humanities and the Law at the Bard High School Early College- Queens. She is also an adjunct assistant professor at The City University of New York, where she teaches both graduate and undergraduate coursework. She is a chapter author of the textbook, Forensic Social Work: Psychosocial and Legal Issues Across Diverse Populations and Settings, Second Edition, Chapter 23, Expert Witness Testimony in Forensic Practice and Justice Systems. Ms. Mandal is also an active partner of Barnard College at Columbia University's Rosemary Furman Counseling Center and Smith College School for Social Work.