The Lordess of the flies

Erica is the Senior Curator for Diptera (Flies) and Siphonaptera (fleas), mostly working with the lower Brachycera (chunky flies that include the bee flies and the robber flies), Mycetophilidae (fungus gnats) and Culicidae (mosquitoes). She has carried out many research projects with mosquitoes both around the UK and abroad. She is also involved in an ongoing Asilidae taxonomy research project and is currently working on a large revision of Australian species with an external Collaborator. On top of all that, she is working on describing many new species of Diptera from Dominica with both internal and external collaborators.

As well as her professional commitments she is very much involved in public engagement both within the museum and externally, giving talks to both professional and amateur natural history organisations, as well as in schools, at festivals and on the radio (including narrating a Radio 4 series ‘Who’s the Pest?’. Erica has published a popular science book titled ‘The Secret Life of Flies’ which won an award for zoological communication by the ZSL and the follow up ‘The Inside Out of Flies’ comes out in September.

Erica is President of the Amateur Entomological Society and last year was awarded an Honorary Fellowship to the Royal Entomological Society.

Basically she love flies!