Ella Al-Shamahi


Ella Al-Shamahi is an explorer, paleoanthropologist, evolutionary biologist and stand-up comic. She specializes in the study of Neanderthals. She is also the presenter and producer of BBC2's Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors. She is a Trustee of the International Association for the Study of Arabia.

Early life and career

Al-Shamahi grew up in Birmingham, United Kingdom, and has Yemeni and Syrian ancestry. She has previously received a degree from Imperial College London and is currently doing a PhD at University College London in the Department of Anthropology. In 2015 she was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer.

Expeditions

Al-Shamahi specializes in finding fossils in Palaeolithic caves in unstable and hostile territories, such as Syria, Iraq, Nagorno-Karabakh and Yemen. In her TED talk, Al-Shamahi describes her reconnaissance expedition to Socotra, a Yemeni island. The expedition was funded by the MBI Al Jaber Foundation as part of their ongoing support for the heritage of Yemen. 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. 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. Besides Al-Shamahi, the team included Rhys Thwaites-Jones, Martin Edstrom, and Leon McCarron.

Media

Al-Shamahi is producer and presenter on the BBC2 show Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors, on which she works with Andy Serkis. She is also a stand-up comic and performed 3 shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. 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. Ella is a Trustee of the International Association for the Study of Arabia.

Personal life

Al-Shamahi married at the age of 21 and lived in Surrey, her marriage lasted five years.