Professor Alice Roberts 

Anatomist, biological anthropologist, author and broadcaster

Film work

Alice has presented more than a hundred television documentaries, on subjects relating to human biology, history, and archaeology. In 2024, the eleventh series of Digging for Britain, one of the network’s most popular factual TV series, aired on BBC Two. Other recent work includes Ancient Egypt by Train and Fortress Britain (Channel 4), and Curse of the Ancients and Royal Autopsy (Sky History).

Previous TV presenting credentials include Britain's Most Historic Towns (which achieved an unprecedented audience of 2m+), Extreme Archaeology and Time Team for Channel 4. BBC Two filming credits include Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed, Britain’s Biggest Dig, The Day the Dinosaurs Died, Food Detectives, Coast, Don’t Die Young and The Incredible Human Journey. Work for BBC Four includes Can Science Make Me Perfect? Royal Institution Christmas Lecture, Wild Swimming, Uncovering the Mysteries of 'Britain's Pompeii, The Greatest Tomb on Earth: Secrets of Ancient China, The Celts with Neil Oliver and Britain's Lost Waterlands: Escape to Swallows and Amazons Country.  

Tour

After a sell-out run in Spring 2022, Professor Alice Roberts returned to theatres across the UK in Spring 2024 to launch her new book, Crypt. This final instalment of her highly-acclaimed trilogy explores the experience of life, death and disease in the Middle Ages and beyond. 

Radio

Alice has presented several programmes for Radio 4, including Bodies, Inheritance Tracks, The Life Scientific, and Costing the Earth.

Speaker

Alice is an accomplished public speaker and has also conducted many panel debates and interviews. She interviewed Sir David Attenborough live on stage at the Science Museum and Richard Dawkins at the Royal Institute.

An experienced compere, Alice has hosted numerous awards ceremonies, and prestigious events at the Natural History Museum and the Royal Society.

Books

A prolific writer and best-selling author, in 2023 Alice’s first book for children, Wolf Road, went straight to number two in Amazon’s fiction chart. Her next book Crypt, was published in February 2024, and went straight to the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list.

In 2022, Alice published Anatomical Oddities and Buried, and in 2021, Ancestors was the subject of a hugely popular nationwide tour.

Alice has written eight science and archaeology books: Don’t Die Young, The Incredible Human Journey, The Complete Human Body, Evolution: The Human Story, Human Anatomy, The Incredible unlikeliness of Being (shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize in 2015), The Celts and Buried: An Alternative History of the First Millennium in Britain.

Background

Having originally studied and practiced medicine, Alice went on to become a university lecturer, teaching clinical anatomy, and undertaking research in biological anthropology at the University of Birmingham. She is especially interested in the intersection between biology, archaeology and history, the impact of ancient genomics in archaeology, and the interaction between humans and the environment through time.

Photos by University of Birmingham, Andrew Yarme, Lorain Reed-Drake, Rob Hollingworth, Digging for Britain