Kirsten Simone Vangsness born July 7 1972 is an American actress She graduated from Cerritos High School in Cerritos California in June 1990 She is currently appearing on the CBS drama series Criminal Minds as FBI Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia as well as the spinoff Criminal Minds Suspect Behavior which premiered on February 16 2011 Description above from the Wikipedia article Kirsten Vangsness licensed under CCBYSAfull list of contributors on Wikipedia