Gem-A Conference 2025

Helen is a renowned jewellery historian and gemmologist, whose 25-year career has spanned the global gem and jewellery industry from auction houses to academic posts. Her passion for gems has led her all over the world, including the ruby mines of Burma, the emerald shafts of Colombia, the sapphire beds of Sri Lanka, and salerooms and collections from Paris to New York. For ten years she was a jewellery specialist for Sotheby’s and Christie’s in London and Geneva, where she managed such sales as the private jewellery collection of HRH The Princess Margaret in 2006. She has since held roles as Professeur d’Histoire du Bijoux at the Geneva University of Art and Design and as Managing Director of a gemmological Academy across Switzerland and Asia.

 She is now the Senior Curator of Jewellery at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and Lead Curator for their blockbuster exhibition, Cartier. Helen has a degree in Classics from Oxford University, is a Fellow of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in London. Precious, The History and Mystery of Gems Across Time, was released in 2024.

Purvi Shah is a recognised leader in responsible business strategy, driving sustainability and ethical innovation across the global diamond industry through her role at De Beers Group. She leads the design and execution of initiatives that embed ethical practices into commercial strategy and protect the integrity and equity of the De Beers brand and its value chain. With over 15 years of experience in the diamond industry, Purvi has developed and led multi-stakeholder programmes that address social, environmental, and reputational risks across complex global supply chains. She oversees De Beers’ flagship Best Practice Principles Programme, which impacts over 300,000 people across 2,000 entities in 79 countries. She also leads the Pipeline Integrity Programme, the industry’s first chain of custody standard for diamond segregation and tracking, providing provenance assurance for De Beers origin diamonds.

Sarah Caldwell Steele has been captivated by Whitby jet since childhood and has dedicated nearly four decades to mastering it as a lapidary material. She earned her degree in Geology from Durham University in 1992, followed by Fellowship of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain (2013) and Diamond Fellowship (2015). She currently serves as Curator of Jet at Whitby Museum.

Widely regarded as the leading authority on jet gemstones, her specialist expertise lies in identifying natural thermoset and thermoplastic materials in 19th-century jewellery. In 2019, she returned to Durham as a PhD candidate, redefining our understanding of gem-quality hydrocarbons. Her pioneering research on jet nomenclature and country-of-origin determination is poised to challenge long-held assumptions about one of Britain’s most iconic gem materials.

Dr. Çiğdem Lüle is a mineralogist and a gemologist who specializes in independent appraisals and litigation support for gems, minerals, and jewelry. One of the pioneers in the field of archaeogemology, she has spent decades researching ancient gemstones and their origins.

She holds advanced credentials from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), Gem-A, and a PhD in Mineralogy. Her clients include high-profile agencies such as the FBI, SEC, U.S. Marshals, and leading law firms. Her leadership includes roles as Executive Director of AIJV and Vice President of AGA. She is a recipient of both the Antonio C. Bonanno Award for Excellence in Gemology in 2016 and the Catriona McInnes Medal in 2019.

Dr. Lüle is widely published, regularly speaks at international conferences, and is recognized as a leading voice in the gemological community.

Dr. Eloïse Gaillou is director and curator of the Mineralogy Museum Paris School of Mines, now known as Mines Paris – PSL. After a Master degree in Geology / Petrology, she received her PhD in Material Sciences at the University of Nantes (France) studying opals. She combined her PhD with a DUG (Diplôme d’Université de Gemmologie), beginning her work on diamonds. Dr. Gaillou continued studying diamonds during her postdoc at the Smithsonian, then at the Carnegie Institution, both in Washington, DC. She took the position of associate curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in 2012, before eventually heading back to France in 2015 to take the position at the School of Mines, where she oversees the collection of 100,000 specimens and takes care of the permanent and temporary exhibits. She took the position of Director of the museum in January 2024.

Dr. Gaillou is the author of more than fifty articles, notably on opal and diamonds. She regularly gives lectures in France and abroad for scientists, connoisseurs or beginners. Dr. Gaillou is currently the French National Representative for IMA – Commission on Museums and member of the Program Committee of the Society of Mineral Museum Professionals (SMMP). She is a member of the MSA (Mineralogical Society of America), of the MetSoc (Meteoritical Society), of the SGF (Geological Society of France) and of the SFMC (French Society of Mineralogy and Crystallography).

Robin’s career has spanned both gemmological and mineralogical fields for more than 20 years. Her current role is Senior Curator, Gems and Minerals at the Natural History Museum in London, where for the past decade she has had the privilege to manage and preserve the incredible gem and mineral collection of ~185,000 specimens. Prior to this, she worked within the private mineral collector business and the mining sector. Robin has a Geology degree with Honors from Curtin University in Western Australia, complemented by a Diploma of Gemmology through the Gem-A, for which she was awarded the prestigious Tully Medal. She is author of Gemstones: a Concise Reference Guide.

A geologist by formation, Daniel did his Master’s thesis in the Limpopo belt in Southern Africa. As part of his PhD in mineralogy at the University of Berne, he worked on a joint research project on superconductors at the IBM Research Lab in Rüschlikon, Zürich, together with Georg J. Bednorz (nobel prize in physics, 1987).

He then joined an international management consultancy, where he worked for several years as a strategy consultant. Daniel took over the position of Managing Director of the Gübelin Gem Lab in 2003, overseeing the expansion of the lab to Hong Kong, New York and Bangkok. He also initiated ProvenanceProof, developing a range of tracking and tracing technologies to bring transparency in the gemstone industry.

Most recently, he and his team developed the deep-learning software Gemtelligence, which evaluates multimodal analysis data using neural networks to support the work of human experts in determining origin and treatment of gemstones.

I studied geology in Italy, where I specialized in mineralogy. After completing my PhD in crystallography and post-doc research in France, I went to UCLA (Los Angeles, California, USA) for a 2-year post-doc. Over the past several years, I went abroad several times for school (Denmark, Spain, Italy and Czech Republic) and for scientific collaborations (Germany, Italy and USA at Oak Ridge Laboratory in Tennessee).

I am interested in the link between the composition and structural features of minerals and their formation/alteration conditions. I study minerals found in terrestrial samples (e.g. gem materials) and extraterrestrial ones (meteorites).

Dr. Rachelle Turnier is the manager of the Carlsbad Museum and In-Kind Gifts at GIA. She works as a steward of the 35,000 specimens in the collection, used for education, research, and displays. Dr. Turnier specializes in sapphire formation, focusing on Montana, Burmese, and alkali-basalt-hosted sapphires. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Geoscience from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a B.S. from California State University, Long Beach. Dr. Turnier has been working with GIA since 2017 as a research intern and then postdoc before assuming her current role.

Rosie Young is a gemmologist at GCS Laboratory in London, where she certifies diamonds and coloured gemstones. In 2023, she completed a summer research internship at the GIA in California, undertaking independent projects on sunstones. Her work included producing a series of photomicrographs of sunstone inclusions, some of which have since been published in Gems & Gemology.

Rosie began her gemmological training with a BSc in Gemmology at Birmingham City University, where her final research project focused on sunstones with hematite inclusions. She graduated with the highest overall degree grade, earning the SGA Prize. She has since achieved her FGA and FEEG qualifications and is currently pursuing a degree in Planetary Science at Birkbeck, University of London.