SoS 267: From Field Notes to Dean’s Notes: Decolonizing Research & Education with Alyssa Crittenden

Join us for a conversation about decolonizing research, rethinking education, and building institutions that actually serve the communities at their center. Chris sits down with Dr. Alyssa Crittenden, who returns to the show, this time as Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate College at UNLV. Since we last talked about community-based participatory research with the Hadza, her work has expanded across research, leadership, and institutional change. We discuss how she balances administration with fieldwork and what it means to advocate for ethical, community-driven science from within the academy. Drawing on recent publications in Nature Human Behaviour and Nature Microbiology, Alyssa unpacks Indigenous child socialization, the structural violence embedded in many schooling systems, and how education can provide access to literacy and credentials without erasing local knowledge. We also explore the difference between “community-inclusive” and true community-based participatory research, the pitfalls of the word traditional, the value of tiered informed consent, and what equitable international collaboration looks like in practice. ------------------------------ Find the work discussed in this episode: Hays, J., Dounias, E., Ninkova, V. et al. Sustainable education should include Indigenous knowledge. Nat Hum Behav (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02288-1 Mangola, S.M., Lund, J.R., Schnorr, S.L. et al. Ethical microbiome research with Indigenous communities. Nat Microbiol 7, 749–756 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-022-01116-w ------------------------------ Contact Dr. Crittenden: alyssa.crittenden@unlv.edu ------------------------------ Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation/, Website: humbio.org, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Cristina Gildee, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow Website: cristinagildee.com, E-mail: cgildee@uw.edu,