McAlister has presented several BBC Radio 4 programmes, Who's the Pest? in 2013 an episode on George Henry Verrall as part of the Natural History Heroes series in 2015 and Metamorphosis - How Insects Transformed Our World in 2021. In 2019 she was interviewed by Jim Al-Khalili for The Life Scientific. She has also contributed to Radio 4 panel programmes such as The Living World where she talked to Miranda Krestovnikoff about winter flies, the Museum of Curiosity in 2012, Nature Table in 2020 and the Infinite Monkey Cage in 2021. In 2019 she featured on the BBC World Service programme The Real Story as part of discussion 'Is capitalism killing our planet, or is it our only hope?' and she talked on ABC's The Science Show about insects and climate change, in 2021 she contributed to NPR's All Things Considered talking about how hard it is to swat houseflies. She has also appeared on several podcasts including Science Friday, the SETI Institute and Scientific American in 2018.
