On the Hunt for Assassin Flies
“Gorgeous.” “Incredible.” “Very cool.” This is how Dr. Charlotte (Herbert) Alberts ’11 describes venomous flies that eat other insects, otherwise known as assassin flies. Alberts is one of only five scientists in the country who researches these flies, officially Diptera: Asilidae, even though they are incredibly important in most natural habitats around the world.
“Flies are incredible and very diverse,” she said. “There are more than 150,00 species and 150 families, and there are more than 7,500 species of just assassin flies described right now. They are found everywhere except for Antarctica, and they often look like other insects, so people don’t even know they really exist. Sometimes people think they’re seeing a bee eating another bee.”
Her passion for the assassin fly, entomology, and scientific research is evident the moment you step inside the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, where she works as a research associate. Her office, surrounded by the vast entomology collection—the largest in the world—is accessible through a maze of stored natural treasures high above the bustling museum.
Alberts’ research takes her to far-reaching parts of the globe in search of these tiny insects to determine how they are related to one another. She’s worked in Namibia and spent time in remote locations of Belize doing a “bio blitz” to collect as many new species as possible to determine the biodiversity of the rainforests. In DC, she works in and helps build the collection and collaborates with fellow scientists to identify and name species to better understand the environment and the natural world.
Her curiosity in the vast world of insects took hold in childhood, when her mother read her the classic children’s novel, Charlotte’s Web. “I immediately empathized with my namesake, Charlotte, and I couldn’t understand why people had such hatred toward spiders and other insects,” she said. “They were harmless and didn’t want to hurt you.”
The assassin fly drew her interest during a research project as an undergraduate at St. Lawrence University studying conservation biology. Alberts continued her work as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Davis.
After working through learning challenges as a child, Alberts arrived on The Hilltop nervous of her abilities. She flourished. “I attribute that to the KUA structure, where you have small class sizes and you develop personal relationships with your teachers,” she says. “They were able to see me as an individual and help me. They inspired me to reach outside of the traditional sit-down academia and instead look into learning in different ways.”
Today, Alberts’ impact on The Hilltop is evident to all who arrive on campus. Her senior capstone—the wind turbine, which she hoped would make KUA a more sustainable campus—is still spinning above the apple trees, grazing sheep, and, undoubtedly, some assassin flies.
This article originally appeared in the Fall/Winter issue of Kimball Union magazine. Read the full issue.
