Xanthe Mallett

Xanthé Danielle Mallett (; born 17 December 1976) is a Scottish forensic anthropologist, criminologist, and television presenter. She specialises in human craniofacial biometrics and hand identification, and behaviour patterns of paedophiles, particularly online. She is an associate professor at the University of Newcastle in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. Mallett was born in Helensburgh, Scotland, and grew up in Bedfordshire, England. Her father was an engineer and her mother a former dancer. Mallet herself was a dancer, and from age 9 attended the Arts Educational School in Tring, Hertfordshire. She was also active in other sports, such as tennis, and planned to take a degree in physical education. However, a car accident severely damaged her knee and required 10 surgeries.

She received her bachelor's degree in archaeological sciences from the University of Bradford, a master's degree in biological anthropology at the University of Cambridge, and her doctorate in forensic science from the University of Sheffield.

For five years, she worked at the Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification (CAHID) at the University of Dundee, Scotland, where she was a forensic practitioner and a lecturer of forensic anthropology. Mallet stated that her interest in criminology began to increase, which led her to move to Australia in 2012. "My casework experience helped me to realise that I was becoming more interested in investigating the behaviours behind the crimes, rather than identifying the victims and offenders from physical evidence they leave behind," she said. She was a senior lecturer at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, before taking the same role at the University of Newcastle in Newcastle, New South Wales.

Mallett has been published in various academic journals including the International Journal of Legal Medicine and the Journal of Forensic Sciences. In 2014, she published the book Mothers Who Murder: And Infamous Miscarriages of Justice about mothers who kill their own children.