Alister Fletcher is Lara's research assistant and a repository for a fantastic array of detailed historical information. He confines his researches to libraries and museums, however, concentrating on understanding and explaining what has already been found, as opposed to Lara's search for new artifacts. He's a 15th-year doctoral student at Oxford and hasn't received his doctorate because his belief that everything is connected to everything else makes it impossible for him to draw the boundaries required to finish his dissertation.