Alyssa Crittenden is the Vice Provost for Graduate Education and the Dean of the Graduate College. She is an interdisciplinary scholar with expertise in anthropology and human biology. Her research explores the relationship between behavior, reproduction, and the environment (ecological, political, and social) with an emphasis on nutrition and maternal and infant health & wellbeing. She is the recipient of the 2021 Conrad Arensberg Award from the American Anthropological Association for furthering anthropology as a natural science.

Crittenden joined UNLV in 2011 as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology after completing a joint postdoctoral fellowship with Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA) at the University of California, San Diego.