Joung Oh is an Associate Professor in the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering experienced, mainly in United States and Australia, on rock mechanics, tunnelling support system, and numerical modelling. Currently, he teaches and researches primarily in the area of mining geomechanics. His research interests include tunnelling and underground space development, coupled behaviour of rock discontinuities, ground-structure interaction, and rock mechanics for caving mechanism. He completed his PhD degree in civil engineering with emphasis on geotechnical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining UNSW in 2013, he was employed at Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) in New York City, US as a professional (registered) engineer.

Patrycja Sheffield has over 11 years’ experience in mine planning and design, mine feasibility and scheduling as well as geotechnical aspects of underground coal mines. Patrycja works for Centennial Coal as a Group manager Mine Planning. In 2007 she obtained Master of Science at University of Science and Technology in Cracow in Mining Engineering and Geology. She worked for 4.5 years in UK deep coal mining and then in 2012 migrated to Australia. From 2012 to 2017 she worked at Springvale Mine as a Senior Mining Engineer (Geotechnical Engineer) and Technical Services Manager. In 2015 she completed Master of Science at Birmingham University as well as Master of Science in Mine Geomechanics at UNSW. In 2017 she completed Diploma of Mine Ventilation as well as Diploma of Work Health and Safety. She is an active member of underground strata and coal burst task-groups of Australian Coal Associations Research Program (ACARP) and has been the monitor of a number of ACARP projects related to these task groups.

Sarah Webster graduated in 1993 with geology honours from Macquarie University. She commenced her career as a mine geologist then geotechnical engineer at Cadia Valley Operations in the newly started Cadia Hill Open cut. In 2006 she moved to St Ives Gold Mine in Kambalda, Western Australia working across open cut, underground and back fill operations. In 2007 awarded Masters Mining Geomechanics from WASM and in 2009 she held position of Geotechnical Superintendent at St Ives. In 2011 she moved back East to Northparkes working as Senior Geotechnical Engineer with the Step Change project, a prefeasibility study of four block caves. She is now the Study Leader for Life of Mine Studies and Exploration at Northparkes, owned by China Molybdenum (CMOC). As Study Leader, Sarah loves bringing together the disciplines of geology, geotechnical, metallurgy, mining and infrastructure to create the future mines at one of the most automated underground mines in the world. She lives in Parkes with husband and two young children.

Prof Ismet Canbulat is a mining engineer with over 30 years of experience in research, consultancy, management, on-site and academia. He has BSc, MSc and PhD degrees from Istanbul Technical University, University of the Witwatersrand and University of Pretoria respectively. In South Africa, he worked for the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), where he was a Research Area Manager in Rock Engineering Programme. After 10 years in research he moved to consultancy and worked for Groundwork Consulting and later for Strata Engineering (currently Golder Associates) in Australia as a Principal Engineer. In 2008, Ismet joined Anglo American Coal in Brisbane, where he was the Group Geotechnical Engineer for underground operations until November 2014. He was responsible for leading the development of geotechnical engineering standards, procedures and the best practices, supporting operations in mine design and green field projects at concept, pre-feasibility and feasibility levels, providing technical support for business risk management, technical support for design and selection of mining equipment as well as implementation of new technologies and research findings at operations. Since 2014, Ismet is Professor, Head of School and Kenneth Finlay Chair of Rock Mechanics at the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, UNSW Sydney.

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).