Nestor Santa is a first-year P.h.D Mining Engineering student and research assistant at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). His research focuses on underground health & safety and environmental monitoring. Nestor completed his M.S in Mining Engineering at Virginia Tech, where he worked on a proof of concept work to demonstrate the effectiveness of using optical microscopy with image analysis as a tool for semi-continuous coal mine dust monitoring. His P.h.D work is focused on developing the technology and designing a prototype that could eventually serve as a novel monitoring device.

More than 25 years of combined experience in mining industry and academia. Specialised in the integration of sensing technologies to drive applied innovation in mining, environmental and civil engineering sectors. Leader of a group of researchers focused on utilising data from sensors mounted on various platforms, from satellite through to UAVs, to visualise, identify and monitor mining operations. Received more than $2.5 million as competitive research grants, including four nationally competitive ACARP grants as the project leader. Supervisor of PhD research projects involving drone-based smart sensing, underground laser scanning, image-based automated material characterisation, mine rehabilitation/closure, climate change and asteroid mining.

Dr Liu is a postdoctoral fellow with the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney. He has a BE in the School of Software, Tsinghua University, China (2016). He received his PhD in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, in 2020. His research areas include big data analytics, database, and point cloud data processing.

Rachel is a mining Ph.D. student with both Curtin University and CSIRO. She is also a research associate with CSIRO for multiple projects. Her Ph.D project is co-funded by CSIRO and Curtin University with several industry partners in improving the modelling techniques in Geoscience using deep generative networks.

As COO of Strayos, Brad leads the development of AI solutions that combine visual and operational data sources to solve tangible use cases for mine operators. He spent the first phase of his career helping over 100 sites optimise drill and blast activities as a mining engineer with Orica and Dyno Nobel. He then expanded the scope of his support to encompass all commercial and operational functions by moving into management consulting with the top tier firm Boston Consulting Group. Brad holds a B Eng (Mining Engineering) from UNSW and an MBA (Finance, Entrepreneurship) from Carnegie Mellon University.

Prof Ladouceur is an internationally recognised researcher in the area of photonics, more specifically in integrated optics and optical sensing networks. His career straddled both academia and the private sector and consequently focusses on applied research complemented with important commercialisation activities. Since joining UNSW in 2005, Prof Ladouceur co-founded two startups (Silanna, Zedelef) which are now important UNSW research partners.

Dr. Stefan Hrabar has been at the forefront of drone autonomy R&D for nearly 20 years. Following his PhD in Computer Science / Robotics on this topic, he spent 13 years at CSIRO where he continued his work on vision and lidar-based perception and navigation for drones. He led the development and commercialisation of Hovermap in CSIRO, and co-founded Emesent in 2018 to bring this ground-breaking technology to market.

Michael Nöger Research Assistant Montanuniversitaet Leoben, Chair of Mining Engineering and Mineral Economics Qualifications: Study of mining engineering with focus in rock mechanics at Montanuniversitaet Leoben. Current research emphasizes on monitoring of rock mass behaviour and description of rock mass properties.