Lexi O'Donnell is a biological anthropologist whose research focuses on how inequality and marginalization impact individual and population health. From 2019-2022 she held a Visiting Assistant Professor position in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Mississippi. In August 2022 she joined the faculty at the University of New Mexico.
She received her B.A. in Anthropology with a focus on Archaeology from the University of Arizona in 2008. In 2016 she earned an M.S. in Evolutionary Anthropology from the University of New Mexico, and in 2019 she received her Ph.D. in Anthropology with a focus in Archaeology from the University of New Mexico.
She has worked on projects focusing on the Southwest United States, Belize, Colombia, Mexico, and the American South. Much of her research has focused on the biological impacts of migrations and population movements in pre-Spanish contact New Mexico. Recently her research focuses on contemporary New Mexican children, to gain better understanding why porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia form.