Ph.D Laurent Cartier – KEY NOTE SPEAKER

Laurent holds a Masters in Earth Sciences from Basel University and completed his FGA Diploma in 2008.
He has been working for the Swiss Gemmological Institute SSEF since 2010, focusing on a variety of gemstone and pearl research projects.
He holds a PhD from Basel University that focused on pearl farming sustainability and traceability, and his research continues to focus on these two themes within gemstones and pearls. Laurent is a lecturer for Gemmology at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) in Switzerland. He is a founder of the Sustainable Pearls initiative and is a contributing researcher to the Gemstone & Sustainable Development Knowledge Hub based at the University of Delaware.
Laurent has widely traveled to gemstone mines and pearl farms worldwide, having spent prolonged periods of time in Sierra Leone, Madagascar and the Pacific.
His research has been published in major gemmological journals.