Serkan Saydam received his BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Mining Engineering from the Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey and completed his Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He then worked at De Beers for 3 years as a project manager in Johannesburg, South Africa. Serkan joined the School of Mining Engineering as a Senior Lecturer in 2006 and since 2017 he has been working as a professor. He is currently Chair in Mining Engineering at the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering at UNSW. A key focus of his research is to address the current needs and future challenges faced by the minerals industry. These are generally very complex engineering problems, as mining environments become more extreme and constraints are imposed due to increasing social, environmental, and health and safety standards. His fields of research include space resources engineering, ground control, mine systems design, mine internet of things, and technology integration and management. He established research collaboration with NASA, ESA and Luxembourg Space Agency, as well as more than 40 research organisations and universities globally. He has more than 250 publications and graduated with 16 PhD students. Serkan attracted more than $15M research grants. Serkan is known for founding and chairing the AusIMM’s International Future Mining Conference Series, and co-chairs AusIMM’s AusRock Conference Series and Off-Earth Mining Forums. Professor Saydam is the High-Level Advisory Board Member of EU funded illuMINEation Project and the Advisory Board Member of 7Sisters Mission, the first Australian Mission for the Moon. Serkan is also the inventor of the Virtual Mine – ViMINE mining engineering game. Professor Saydam received multiple academic awards including the 2020 UNSW Dean’s Award for Global Impact, 2019 UNSW Vice Chancellor’s Postgraduate Research Supervision Award and 2017 Society of Mining Professors’ International Tim Shaw Innovation in Teaching Award. Serkan is currently a Fellow Member of the AusIMM; President of the ISRM Commission on Planetary Rock Mechanics; Deputy Director of the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research (ACSER) at UNSW; Deputy Secretary-General and Council Member of the SOMP (The Society of Mining Professors).

Bob Anderson received his Bachelor of Science Degree from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia in Geology in 1979. In 1985, he received a Master of Science from Old Dominion University in geology with emphasis on structural geology and mapping tectonic features surrounding the Tharsis region of Mars. In 1995, he received a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh in geology with emphasis on visible and near-infrared remote sensing. He has been at JPL for 25 years. His current research is centered on unraveling the geologic history of Mars focusing on the tectonic and paleohydrologic evolution of the Tharsis region and understanding the geomechanical properties of planetary regolith. He recently contributed to the successful Mars Science Laboratory Sample Acquisition/Sample Handling Subsystem. Bob was the past chair of the Planetary Science Division of the Geological Society of America.

Dr. Asahina received his PhD from the University of California Davis Campus in 2011, conducted a postdoctoral study at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 2011 to 2014. He has some research foundation in hydraulic coupling process, roc mechanics microexperiment and numerical simulation. In 2016, Dr. Asahina obtained the open foundation of SKLGME, he will cooperate with researcher PAN Pengzhi in Permeability evolution under triaxial compression deformation of geomaterials.

Ömer Aydan obtained his BSc degree in Mining Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, Turkey, in 1979 and MSc degree in Rock Mechanics and Excavation Engineering from University of Newcastle Upon Tyne in 1982, and his PhD in Rock Mechanics from Nagoya University, Japan, in 1989. Aydan worked at Nagoya University as a research associate (1987-1991), and at the Department of Marine Civil Engineering at Tokai University, first as Assistant Professor (1991-1993), then as Associate Professor (1993-2001), and finally as Professor (2001-2010). Aydan then became Professor of the Institute of Oceanic Research and Development at Tokai University, and he moved to The university of the Ryukyus, Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Nishihara, Okinawa, Japan in November, 2013 and retired at the end of March 2020. He is currently Emeritus Professor at the University of Ryukyus, Nishihara, Okinawa, Japan.

Dr Bobet is the Edgar B. and Hedwig M. Olson Professor of Civil Engineering at Purdue University. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Civil Engineering from Technical University of Madrid in Spain and a Doctor of Science degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Bobet’s areas of interest include rock fracture mechanics, wave propagation through fractured media and underground structures.