About
Ben Aldiss
Dr Ben Aldiss is an ecologist, entomologist, journalist, broadcaster and public speaker. He completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology from Royal Holloway College, then researched the alarm behaviour of wasps for his PhD at the Chemical Entomology Unit of Southampton University.
After his research he joined the Royal Navy for sixteen months as an officer in the Fleet Air Arm, serving onboard the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible and as a trainee Observer at RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall.
He then taught in various independent schools, including Malvern College, where he also joined the Royal Naval Reserve and set up the Royal Navy section of the Combined Cadet Force. For nine years he was Head of Biology at the British School of Brussels, before becoming Deputy Head of Box Hill School in Surrey – sister school to Gordonstoun.
A Chartered Biologist, he has taught at every level of the National Curriculum, from being temporary form teacher for a Reception and Year 1 class in a state Primary School, to Year 13 as a Biology teacher at A Level and Theory of Knowledge teacher for the International Baccalaureate in independent schools.
He also lectured on two honours degree courses: in Conservation Management for Otley College, Ipswich, and as an Associate Lecturer in Animal Physiology for the Open University. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology for his services to citizen science.
In 2002 he left full-time teaching for a few years to set up Farmlife – a project designed to educate schoolchildren about agriculture and its link with wildlife. The successor to this project – Cascade – was launched in 2013 at Gresham’s School in Norfolk, when he returned to full-time teaching.
He recently provided input to OCR’s new GCSE in Natural History, which is due to be available in schools from September 2025.
Ben is an authority on British and European wildlife and was Nature Correspondent for The European in the 1990s. In the summer of 2016 he ran the week-long Norfolk Festival of Nature and was the guest on BBC Radio Norfolk’s version of Desert Island Discs. For the same radio station, he presented a 28-part, weekly series called The Nature of Norfolk – an A to Z of the County’s Wildlife and followed this up by writing a monthly column for the Eastern Daily Press Norfolk magazine.
In 2020 Ben was invited by the BBC to speak about wasps, as one of the guests on Radio 4’s Saturday Live show. Click the link below to hear it:
As a professional ecologist, Ben has carried out various botanical surveys for county wildlife trusts.
For eight years he was an Expert Adviser and Monitor in Biodiversity and Education for the Heritage Lottery Fund. In this role, he provided advice for Butterfly Conservation’s prestigious Moths Count project, and was fortunate to be introduced to BC’s President, Sir David Attenborough.
After moving to Wiltshire from Norfolk in 2019, Ben became one of the original presenters on Radio Bath’s monthly environment show called Earth Matters.
He is a trained squash coach and mountain leader and was a qualified expeditions assessor for the Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award. Until its close in 2022, he was Managing Editor of the online journal World Agriculture.
Ben is married with four children and five grandchildren.