Dr. Erin Gilbert in the 2016 film Ghostbusters, played by Kristen Wiig, is Abby Yates' second-in-command. She is introduced as an assistant particle physics professor at Columbia University, but her bid for tenure fails after her previous research into the paranormal with Abby comes to light. Had repeatedly stalked by a ghost of a deceased neighbor when she was eight year old, Erin later dismissed her belief in the supernatural after years of psychiatric therapy paid by her family, but regains it after encounters the ghost of Gertrude Aldridge.
In the novelization, she is depicted as having grown up near Battle Creek, Michigan; she met Abby in her senior year of high school, and spent much of her time at the University of Michigan researching ghosts with Abby. She did postgraduate work at Princeton University, and got her doctorate at MIT. She shares traits with Peter Venkman as both kept getting slimed, they are also team leaders with a sense of humor and attraction to the opposite gender. Erin is attracted to Kevin Beckman and she had tried to seduce him; her motive of hiring him as a receptionist is for her to look at.