Elizabeth A. McAlister is a scholar of Religious Studies, and African-American studies, and feminist, gender, and sexuality Studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. She is known for her contributions in Afro-Caribbean religions, Haitian Vodou, Pentecostalism, race theory, transnational migration, Caribbean musicology, and evangelical spiritual warfare.

McAlister earned a bachelor's degree from Vassar College, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1985. She then attended Yale University for graduate school, receiving an M.A. in African and Afro-American studies in 1990, an M.A. in history in 1992, an M.Phil. in 1993, and a Ph.D. in 1995.

McAlister is a professor of religion at Wesleyan University. She co‑wrote a CNN op‑ed with Millery Polyné of New York University about Haitian Vodou, describing how the faith supported people in slavery and played a role in the Haitian Revolution.

McAlister has written for "The Conversation" about Catholic views on demons and "spiritual warfare". She explained that some Catholics see abuse by priests as the work of demonic temptation, and noted the Church’s recent focus on "exorcism". She has also served as director of the Center for African American Studies at Wesleyan.

In 2008, McAlister received the Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching at Wesleyan University.

In 2023 she was named a Crossroads Research Fellow at Princeton University, where she collaborated on building a digital archive of a Vodou temple in Port-au-Prince, called Espas Mikolan.

McAlister's first book and many articles focus on Afro-Caribbean religions, especially Haitian Vodou.

McAlister studied Rara festivals in Haiti, which led to her first book, "Rara! Vodou, Power and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora" (University of California Press, 2002), showing how Rara bands use Vodou spirits and the dead to voice coded social and political views.