Nikky LaBranche is a Research Fellow in the Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre (MISHC) within the Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI) at the University of Queensland. Her PhD is in characterising the impact of dust on the respiratory health of coal mine workers, for which she was awarded the AusIMM Education Endowment Fund Postgraduate Scholarship. Nikky is a mining engineer with almost two decades of experience in research and surface and underground coal through her work in the US, Colombia and Australia. She is currently Chair of the AusIMM Health & Safety Society, Past-Chair of the Southern Queensland Branch and has received the John T. Boyd Young Engineers Award.

Alex de Andrade is a Mechanical Engineer Master’s graduate who joined Grydale in 2023 as the CEO. Alex brings a proven global track record in OEM manufacturing excellence. An inventor by nature and multiple patent holder, Alex enjoys publishing technical papers and contributing to technical standards and handbooks. As an honorary industry fellow and associate professor, he enjoys giving back to the community by mentoring STEM additive manufacturing students in their career paths and upholding environmental health and safety standards.

Professor Ting Ren is a Mining Engineer and Research Scientist with a track record spanning over 30 years in the mining industry. He has extensive expertise in Mining Engineering and Mine Safety, with a focus on mine dust mitigation, coal mine gas management, and mine fire and spontaneous combustion prevention and inertisation, as well as computational modelling and simulations. Ting joined the University of Wollongong in 2009. He has led industry-driven research projects aimed at addressing operational issues and has been successful in securing significant funding of over 6.0 million dollars from industry, ACARP and ARC. He has served as an expert witness for the Queensland Coal Mining Board of Inquiry, the Senate Select Committee of the Australian Government on Health, and an invited speaker to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in the USA. Ting previously worked as a Senior Research Engineer and Project Leader at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and Senior Research Fellow/Lecturer at the University of Nottingham Ting is a Chartered Engineer (CEng) registered with the UK Engineering Council, a member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals, and Mining, a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (MAusIMM).

Ben Walsh is a PhD candidate studying the effective of real-time dust monitoring equipment for occupational hygiene exposure assessment. Ben Walsh is a full member of the AIOH and has over 15 years' experience in the occupational hygiene and health and safety fields.