Alissa Anderegg (born April 8, 1994) is an American beauty pageant titleholder and national Alzheimer's activist who was crowned as the winner of

Miss World America 2020 Miss World America 2020 was the 12th edition of the Miss World America pageant. it was held virtually due to COVID-19 on October, 2020. Emmy Rose Cuvelier of South Dakota crowned her successor Alissa Anderegg of New York at the end of the event ...

to represent the United States in

Miss World Miss World is the oldest existing international beauty pageant. It was created in the United Kingdom by Eric Morley in 1951. Since his death in 2000, Morley's widow, Julia Morley, has co-chaired the pageant. Along with Miss Universe, Miss Int ...

. Anderegg represented New York (state) in the national competition as Miss World New York.

Early life

Anderegg was raised in Danville, California. As a child, she starred several professional theatrical productions - including the Los Angeles premiere of ''

Parade A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, float (parade), floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually ce ...

'', the world premiere of ''Night of the Hunter,'' and a three-year contract in the West Coast premiere of ''An American Girls Revue''. Anderegg graduated from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

in 2016. She went on to graduate with a Masters in Science from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

Alzheimer's activism

Anderegg began advocating for

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

at age 11, in honor of her grandmother Mary Fran Anderegg who had the disease. She has been featured in the Emmy-winning

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

documentary The Alzheimer's Project, contributed an essay to ''The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Takes on Alzheimer’s'' and ''Alzheimer's in America'', served as a face of Maria Shriver's Women's Alzheimer's Movement national campaign, and more. In 2021, she partnered with CaringKind: The Heart of Alzheimer's Caregiving as an ambassador and joined the Board of Directors of the Youth Movement Against Alzheimer's.

Pageantry

On 16 August 2020, Anderegg was awarded the title of Miss World America New York 2020, a preliminary to

. On 16 October 2020, Anderegg was crowned as

, succeeding the outgoing Miss World America 2019 and Miss World 2019 Top 40 semifinalist, Emmy Rose Cuvelier. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the pageant was conducted virtually over the course of a month. Anderegg also won the Beauty with a Purpose Award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderegg, Alissa Miss World America 1994 births Living people American beauty pageant winners