Ella is a National Geographic Explorer, palaeoanthropologist, evolutionary biologist... and stand-up comic. She specialises in Neanderthals, caves and expeditions in hostile, disputed and unstable territories. She almost exclusively works in places it is hard to get insurance, such as Iraq, Yemen, Nagorno-Karabakh and places she can’t publicly admit to. From heading up exploratory expeditions to joining cave excavations, the conditions can be unusual, from avoiding landmines to wearing a burqa for security reasons.