In our twenty-seventh Mud Talks podcast, we listen to Lola Ben-Alon deliver her keynote address "EARTH MATERIALS "RECIPES": EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH AND PEDAGOGIES" at the Earth USA 2024 Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Lola is an Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP, where she directs the Natural Materials Lab and the Building Science and Technology curriculum. She specializes in earth- and bio-based building materials, their life cycle, supply chains, fabrication techniques, and policy. Ben-Alon received her Ph.D. from the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University and holds a B.S. in Structural Engineering and an M.S. in Construction Management from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. At the Technion, Ben-Alon co-founded the Experimental Art and Architecture Lab. Her work has been exhibited at the London Craft Week, Indian Ceramics Triennial, Tallinn Architecture Biennale, Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, and published in Building and Environment, Journal of Green Building, and Automation in Construction. Ben-Alon serves on the board of ACSA’s Technology | Architecture + Design, and Elsevier’s Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.

Earth USA 2024 was the 12th International Conference on Earthen Architecture & Construction hosted by Adobe in Action. More information about the conference can be found at www.earthusa.org.