Sea Urchin Ceramics:
Art, Science and Conservation

Guest Presenter: Leila Al-hemali 

Explore the intersectional world of art, science and conservation in a talk hosted by ceramicist and software engineer Leila Al-Hemali. In this session, Leila will share her journey that led her to discover innovative ways to use sea urchins in ceramics to help mitigate the loss of kelp forests and discuss the overlaps between glaze chemistry and ocean chemistry. In a world where people are encouraged to specialize, Leila will discuss the need for multi-disciplinary thinkers and cross-concept collaboration to find novel climate solutions.

Leila came to ceramics in 2019 with a background in environmental sciences. When she took her first ceramics class, clay became a true obsession. She grew up in Florida and, as an avid diver, considered the California kelp forests a bucket-list dive. When she learned about the staggering rate of kelp forest loss, Leila had the idea to try to use the urchin bodies as a replacement for commercially mined calcium carbonate. And, to her surprise, it worked! Leila daylights as a software engineer, working for a small company building interactive wildfire simulations in Santa Fe, New Mexico, often dreaming of the wide, gracious expanse of the Pacific Ocean from her home office.