Professor David Williams initiated and directs the industry-funded UQ Geotechnical Engineering Centre at The University of Queensland, which has attracted $10M in funding, and manages Large Open Pit Project. He has over 40 years of teaching, research and consulting experience, and is internationally recognised for his expertise and experience in mine waste management and mine closure, pertaining to tailings dams in particular.

Bruce Brown has 43 years’ experience in geotechnical engineering and mine waste management. His career has comprised 25 years as a principal of the international consulting group, Knight Piésold Consulting and 13 years as the Chief Adviser, Tailings and Dams for Rio Tinto, Technology and Innovation. In this time he has been responsible for the design, construction, operation and closure of numerous tailings storage facilities in North and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia and the South Pacific. His experience ranges from cold regions of Alaska and Northern Canada to the mountainous regions of South America and the tropical monsoonal countries. With Rio Tinto, he has been focussed on risk management, technical reviews and development of standards for effective mine waste management. He was an author of the ANCOLD Guidelines on Planning, Design, Construction, Operation and Closure of Tailings Dams and the Federal EPA Tailings Containment module of the Best Practice Environmental Management in Mining. Dr Brown is now in private practice and offers services to the mining and consulting communities for peer and independent technical and strategic reviews, audits for operations and construction quality assurance, risk assessments, conceptual design and value engineering.

Pepe has around 30 years of diversified professional experience in projects mainly associated with geotechnical/ geoenvironmental engineering for the mining and civil industries throughout the world. Pepe works as team leader conducting conceptual to detailed engineering for mine waste facilities, including design of tailings disposal systems using a wide range of dewatering levels. His experience covers from site investigation to closure design including advanced modelling for dam break analyses and water balance and geotechnical design for tailings facilities, heap leach pads, ponds and waste rock dumps. Pepe is currently EoR and Senior Third-Party Reviewer of several leading mining operations in Australia and provides expert review for tailings and waste management for due diligence and peer review projects for banks and potential investors.

Cameron is a senior tailings engineer specialising in developing and implementing responsible solutions for tailings and mine waste challenges. Cameron has experience encompassing a wide variety of commodities, tailings disposal methods and climates, spanning the Canadian Arctic to the Australian desert, from his career as a specialist tailings consultant prior to joining AngloGold Ashanti last year. Cameron is now responsible for tailings management for the Australia Region and aims to practically and efficiently improve tailings management across the industry with a holistic problem-solving approach.