Alan Madoc Roberts (born 1941)[3] is an English academic serving as Emeritus professor of Zoology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol.

He went on to study at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he was awarded a PhD in 1967 for research supervised by Theodore Holmes Bullock[2] on the escape response of Crayfish.

[9] His certificate of election reads: Alan Roberts is a distinguished electrophysiologist, neuroanatomist and student of animal behaviour.

His sustained investigation of the circuitry that underlies behaviour in amphibian tadpoles has transformed our understanding of a spinal network generating rhythmic movement and its regulation by sensory and descending inputs.

Inspired by Coghill to work with simple networks in an embryonic vertebrate, his detailed cell by cell analysis provides unique insights into the developmental origins of connectivity and its functional significance.