Alice May Roberts (born 19 May 1973) is a British academic, anatomist, archaeologist, TV presenter and author. Since 2012 she has been professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham. She was president of the charity Humanists UK from January 2019 to May 2022, and is now a vice-president of the organisation.
Early life and education
Roberts was born in Bristol in 1973, the daughter of an aeronautical engineer and an English and arts teacher. She grew up in the Bristol suburb of Westbury-on-Trym, where she attended the private Redmaids' High School. Roberts has said that her fascination with the ancient past was sparked by watching a video of a live unwrapping of a mummy at Bristol Museum when she was aged 8.
In December 1988, Roberts won the BBC1 Blue Peter Young Artists competition, appearing with her picture and the presenters on the front cover of the 10 December 1988 edition of the Radio Times.
Roberts studied medicine at the University of Wales College of Medicine (now part of Cardiff University) and graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MB BCh) degree, having gained an intercalated Bachelor of Science degree in anatomy. In 2008, after seven years, she completed her PhD in paleopathology, the study of disease in ancient human remains.
Research and career
After graduating, Roberts worked as a junior doctor with the National Health Service in South Wales for 18 months. In 1998, she left clinical medicine and worked as an anatomy demonstrator at the University of Bristol, becoming a lecturer there in 1999.
She spent seven years working part-time on her PhD in paleopathology, receiving the degree in 2008. She was a senior teaching fellow at the University of Bristol Centre for Comparative and Clinical Anatomy, where her main roles were teaching clinical anatomy, embryology, and physical anthropology, as well as researching osteoarchaeology and paleopathology. She stated in 2009 that she was working towards becoming a professor of anatomy.
In 2009, she co-presented modules for the Beating Bipolar programme, the first online treatment package for bipolar depression, trialled by Cardiff University researchers. A clinical trial began in June 2009 involving about 100 patients with bipolar disorder in South Wales.
From August 2009 until January 2012, Roberts was a visiting fellow in both the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Department of Anatomy of the University of Bristol.
From 2009 to 2016 Roberts was Director of Anatomy at the NHS Severn Deanery School of Surgery and also an honorary fellow at Hull York Medical School.
In February 2012, Roberts was appointed the University of Birmingham's first Professor of Public Engagement in Science.
Roberts has been a member of the advisory board of Cheltenham Science Festival for 10 years and a member of the Advisory Board of the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath since 2018.
Writing in the i newspaper in 2016, Roberts dismissed the aquatic ape hypothesis (AAH) as a distraction "from the emerging story of human evolution that is more interesting and complex", adding that AAH has become "a theory of everything" that is simultaneously "too extravagant and too simple". She concluded by saying that "science is about evidence, not wishful thinking".
Roberts and Aoife McLysaght co-presented the 2018 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in London. She was president of the British Science Association for the year 2019–2020.
In January 2021, Roberts presented a 10-part narrative history series about the human body entitled Bodies on BBC Radio 4.
In June 2026, Roberts will unveil an evolution-themed headline garden at BBC Gardeners' World Live 2026 at the NEC in Birmingham, in collaboration with garden designer David Stevens. She is due to headline at the Battle of Evesham Festival in August 2026.
Television career
Roberts first appeared on television in the Time Team Live 2001 episode, working on Anglo-Saxon burials at Breamore, Hampshire. She served as a bone specialist and general presenter in many episodes, including the spin-off series Extreme Archaeology. In August 2006, Roberts was one of the main presenters for the Time Team special episode Big Royal Dig, which investigated archaeology of Britain's royal palaces.
A presenter of science and history television documentaries, Roberts was one of the regular co-presenters of the BBC geographical and environmental series Coast.
Roberts wrote and presented a BBC Two series on anatomy and health entitled Dr Alice Roberts: Don't Die Young, which was broadcast from January 2007. She presented a five-part series on human evolution and early human migrations for BBC Two entitled The Incredible Human Journey, beginning on 10 May 2009. In September 2009, she co-presented (with doctor Mark Hamilton) A Necessary Evil?, a one-hour documentary about the Burke and Hare murders.
In August 2010, she presented a one-hour documentary on BBC Four, Wild Swimming, inspired by Roger Deakin's book Waterlog. Roberts presented a four-part BBC Two series on archaeology in August–September 2010, Digging for Britain. Roberts explained, "We're taking a fresh approach by showing British archaeology as it's happening out in the field, from the excitement of artefacts as they come out of the ground, through to analysing them in the lab and working out what they tell us about human history." The show was successful and aired its thirteenth series in early 2026. In February 2026, Roberts announced that she would be leaving the show after 15 years.
In March 2011, she presented a BBC documentary in the Horizon series entitled Are We Still Evolving? Later that year she presented another documentary, How to Build a Dinosaur, which aired on BBC Four on 21 September 2011.
She presented the series Origins of Us, which aired on BBC Two in October 2011, examining how the human body has adapted through seven million years of evolution. The last part of this series featured Roberts visiting the Rift Valley in East Africa.
In April 2012, Roberts presented Woolly Mammoth: Secrets from the Ice on BBC Two. From 22 to 24 October 2012, she appeared, with co-presenter Dr George McGavin, in the BBC series Prehistoric Autopsy, which discussed the remains of early hominids such as Neanderthals, Homo erectus and Australopithecus afarensis. In May and June 2013 she presented the BBC Two series Ice Age Giants. In September 2014, she was a presenter on the Horizon programme Is Your Brain Male or Female?
In October 2014, she presented BBC TV show Spider House, about overcoming her arachnophobia. In 2015, she co-presented a 3-part BBC TV documentary with Neil Oliver entitled The Celts: Blood, Iron and Sacrifice and wrote a book to tie in with the series: The Celts: Search for a Civilisation. In April–May 2016, she co-presented the BBC Two programme Food Detectives which looked at food nutrition and its effects on the body. In August 2016, she presented the BBC Four documentary Britain's Pompeii: A Village Lost in Time, which explored the Must Farm Bronze Age settlement in Cambridgeshire. In May 2017, she was a presenter of the BBC Two documentary The Day The Dinosaurs Died. In April 2018, she presented the six-part Channel 4 series Britain's Most Historic Towns, which examines the history of British towns, which was followed by a second series in May 2019 and a third series in November 2020.
In September 2018, she presented the BBC Two documentary King Arthur's Britain: The Truth Unearthed, which examines new archaeological discoveries that cast light on the political and trading situation in Britain during the Early Middle Ages. In December 2018, she presented a series of three Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, titled Who am I? and broadcast on BBC Four, with guest lecturer Aoife McLysaght.
On 4 August 2020, Roberts was the guest on BBC Radio 4's The Life Scientific. Aired as a three-part series in…