Laura is a chemical engineer and hydrometallurgist with over 20 years of research experience in the minerals processing industry. Her main area of focus is in-situ recovery, or keyhole mining, which involves the injection of fluid underground, dissolution of value minerals within the orebody and fluid recovery at the surface for further processing. Laura joined the CSIRO 11 years ago from the research team of Anglo American and prior to that, worked in the research group of De Beers Consolidated Mines.

Tobias Ladinig is studying mining engineering with focus on mining rock mechanics at Montanuniversitaet Leoben. Currently a PhD-student of Prof. Wagner and research assistant at Chair of Mining Engineering. Focus on applied mining rock mechanics and underground mining systems from a rock mechanics point of view.

Mining Engineer with more than 10 year of experiences in different commodities across multiple countries, including Peru, Chile and Australia. Extensive experience in open pit mining, mine productivity, mining automation, mine planning and project management. I hold a Master in Business Administration and Mineral Economics. My current role is Principal Engineer for Production Scheduling at BHP WAIO.

Jiachen Wang, born in January 1963, is the professor and dectoral advisor in mining engineering in China University of Mining & Technology Beijing (CUMTB). He is also the vice-president of CUMTB, the director of the Coal Industry Engineering Research Center of Top-coal Caving Mining, the academic leader of thick coal seam mining and its ground control in China. Professor Wang’s research and teaching interests are in ground control, thick coal seam mining, intelligent mining and rock slope stability. He has published more than 150 papers and 6 books, among which over 90 papers are indexed in SCI or EI.

Krzysztof (Kris) Biegaj AusIMM Member since 1992 has 30 years+ mining experience in various parts of the World, majority in Australia. His experience includes 7 years in underground coal mining in Poland, 4.5 years with Western Australian Department of Mines - 2 years as a Special Inspector of Mines/Senior Ventilation Officer based in Karratha and 2.5 years as a District Inspector of Mines/Deputy Regional Mining Engineer in Kalgoorlie. Since April 1992 Kris Biegaj has been working in Mine Management and Mining Consulting in Australia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ghana, Mongolia and Philippines in both underground and open pit operations.

J M Vihanga Hycinie Peiris is a second year PhD student from school of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications at University of New South Wales, Sydney. She received her bachelor’s degree in 2019 from Northumbria University at Newcastle Upon Tyne in UK. Her research interests centre around providing low power solutions to battery powered IoT systems used in mining industry. She is currently investigating power optimisation mechanisms for positioning systems that exist in power constrained and access limited underground mines.