Alessandra Cassar is professor of economics at the University of San Francisco. She is vice-president of North America ESA, research affiliate at ESI (Chapman), and faculty affiliate at CEGA (UC, Berkeley). She received her MA in Economics from Bocconi University in 1996, and her PhD in International Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2001.

Using laboratory and field experiments across the world, Cassar focuses on the contributions of evolutionary processes to shaping human behavior. Her current research concentrates on female competitiveness; the consequences of conflict and disaster victimization for prosociality; and the role of social networks for economic outcomes.