Alia Al Shamsi is an Emarati Italian author whose career started as a photojournalist travelling the world before settling back in Dubai and teaching photography as an adjunct at the American University of Sharjah. She has a BA in Photography from Griffith University, Australia and MA in Photo-Image from Durham University, UK. Her work has been exhibited internationally alongside pillars of photography Julia Margeret Cameron and Cindy Sherman as well as part of the UAE Embassy in Washington DC private collection and displayed at Rove Hotels.
She holds awards including EDAAD Scholarship 2007, British Council Cultural Leadership International 2010 and 2011 Emirates Woman Artist of the Year.
Al Shamsi’s recently published book Alayah has been awarded the support from Dubai Culture part of their printing and publishing movement “Reading in Arabic Challenge”.
She is currently furthering her studies with MSc in Applied Psychology and is specialising in Bibliotherapy a project by the UAE Board on Books for Young People which aims to dispatch the first batch of UAE bibliotherapist in different refugee camps.