Erica McAlister

Erica McAlister Hon. FRES is an entomologist, Principal Curator of Diptera and Siphonaptera at the Natural History Museum, London, and presenter/author. Her research involves systematics work on flies and has carried out extensive field research, including Costa Rica, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam. She has researched the pollinators and herbivores of potatoes and tomatoes in Peru, and has worked in Dominica, Honduras, Romania and Knepp Wilding Estate with Operation Wallacea, collecting insect specimens and inspiring young people. She has also worked on mosquitoes, both current collections and consultancy as well as working with historic genome consortiums. She is a past President of the Amateur Entomologists' Society, outgoing Chair of the Dipterists Forum and committee member of the Dipterists Society.

Erica is an advocate for the importance of flies, highlighting their ecosystem services such as pollination and decomposition, and the need for more research into Diptera as they are an understudied group.

As well as presenting three Radio 4 series on Insects, she is a regular on science programs (both serious and comedy) and has published The Secret Life of Flies (2016), The Inside Out of Flies (2020), A bug’s World (2022) and Metamorphosis: How Insects are Changing our World (2024).