Alison Cronin was born in September 1966 as Alison Lorraine Ames in San Diego, California. She studied biological anthropology at Cambridge University. She met Jim Cronin at Monkey World in 1993 while she was living in the UK. They married in 1996. They were joint directors of Monkey World. After her husband died, Cronin continued running the site and working against the illegal transportation of animals.