Ella Al-Shamahi

Al-Shamahi grew up in Birmingham, United Kingdom,[1] and has Yemeni and Syrian ancestry.[1][4][6] She has a degree from Imperial College London and is currently doing a PhD at University College London in the Department of Anthropology.[7] In 2015 she was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer.[8] She is a Trustee of the International Association for the Study of Arabia,[5] which promotes research relating to the cultural and natural heritage of the Arabian Peninsula.

Al-Shamahi specialises in finding fossils in Palaeolithic caves in unstable and hostile territories, such as Syria, Iraq, Nagorno-Karabakh and Yemen.[6][8] In her TED talk, Al-Shamahi describes her reconnaissance expedition to Socotra, a Yemeni island.[9] The expedition was funded by the MBI Al Jaber Foundation as part of their ongoing support for the heritage of Yemen.[10] She was prohibited from traveling to mainland Yemen, as it was a no-fly zone, but found that the island was relatively safe. However, she had to find a way to get to the island.[11] In early 2018 her team set off on a cement cargo ship through the Indian Ocean, where they were at risk of running into Somali pirates, and reached Socotra after three days.[6][12] Besides Al-Shamahi, the team included Rhys Thwaites-Jones, Martin Edstrom, and Leon McCarron.[13]

Al-Shamahi is producer and presenter on the BBC2 show Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors, on which she works with Andy Serkis.[14] She is also a stand-up comic and performed three shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.[15][16] She furthermore presented an episode for Horizon called Body Clock: What Makes Us Tick?, for which she locked a test subject in an underground bunker for 10 days.[17] In 2020 she presented Channel 4's Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon.

Al-Shamahi married at the age of 21 and lived in Surrey; her marriage lasted five years.[1]

• Ella Al-Shamahi on Twitter
• TED Talk: The fascinating (and dangerous) places scientists aren't exploring