Alec is a Senior Plant Metallurgist with MMG Dugald river. Alec graduated from University of Newcastle with a Chemical engineering degree and began his career with MMG working as a plant metallurgist at their Rosebery operations. Since then he has had roles in North Queensland at Dugald River and Mount Isa mines. He has led the execution of novel technologies such as integration of SAG mill soft sensors into the control system. He has an ongoing interest in automation and modelling for improving the consistency of plant operations.

Warwick Smith is a Principal with Hatch in the digital business practice with over 17 years’ experience in mining. He has broad operational and technical experience in a range of minerals processing plants and smelters, including 10 years at Mount Isa Mines where he was the Operations Manager for the Zinc Lead Concentrate and Lead Smelter. Warwick has extensive experience in the empirical modelling of flotation processes utilising live sensor data for near real-time prediction. For the past 6 years, Warwick has worked in the area of advanced decision support systems at various Australian and international sites, either leading design and implementation projects or providing independent review of existing systems. He specializes in the application of modern machine learning to process optimisation and decision automation for operators.

As RME’s General Manager of Engineering, Simon Thompson leads RME’s engineering team, who combine traditional (mechanical, hydraulics, electrical) and emerging (software, digital twins, robotics) expertise to deliver high-quality engineered solutions for safer and faster mill relining. Simon has over a decade of experience with OEMs in the resources sector and previously led RME's Global Asset Support Engineering team. Simon holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering with First Class Honours from the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ). He is also an active industry representative on UniSQ’s Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering Advisory Committee, a Member of the Institution of Engineers Australia (MIEAust), a Registered Professional Engineer of Professionals Australia (RPEng), a Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland (RPEQ) and named as an inventor and co-inventor on several mechanical patents.

Mr. Akhilesh Jain is a distinguished Lead Advanced Process Control Engineer at Rockwell Automation, boasting an extensive professional tenure spanning over 18 years. He graduated with a B.Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from Nagpur University, India, laying a solid foundation for his illustrious career. Demonstrating exceptional proficiency, Mr. Jain has garnered a stellar reputation for spearheading Advanced Process Control (APC) projects across various industries, Mineral Processing, Water, Food & Beverage and Oil Refineries Mr. Jain has adeptly utilized the time-tested technology of the Rockwell Automation Pavilion8® MPC platform, boasting over 30 years of proven excellence, to enhance the efficiency of the Harmony Gold, Hidden Valley Grinding Circuit. His efforts have resulted in increases in throughput, reduction in variability and operators expressing a strong desire for the technology to be implemented across other circuits. Through his leadership, Mr. Jain has established a robust culture of adoption and scalability of this technology throughout the processing plant, setting a solid foundation for continued optimization and growth.

Leonardo M. Silva Jr. is a Senior Instrumentation and Control System Engineer with extensive experience in the natural resources, oil & gas, manufacturing, and mining industries. He specializes in process optimization, system troubleshooting, and project management, with expertise in a wide range of control systems, including Yokogawa Centum VP, Emerson DeltaV, and Allen Bradley PLCs. Leonardo has successfully led teams and implemented advanced automation solutions across major industrial projects in Australia, Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

Hans Liang has over 12 years' experience in operations and consulting for the mining industry. He began his career with MMG working at the Century and Rosebery concentrators in both Plant metallurgist and Project metallurgist roles. He was actively involved in the Tailings Retreatment Project at Century prior to mine closure, evaluating the viability of reprocessing the Century tailings utilising the existing site infrastructure. Hans has specialist knowledge in process control strategies, milling, sulphide flotation, and the application of the Albion Process™ leaching technology for complex base metal and refractory gold projects. He has held Senior Metallurgist roles at JKTech and Core Resources where he has leveraged his technical knowledge across various metallurgical processes and commodities to implement operational improvement projects and deliver complex metallurgical testwork programs.

David Seaman is a highly experienced metallurgy professional with over twenty years of expertise in copper, gold, and base metal processing. His career is marked by a consistent track record of optimizing operational performance through meticulous plant diagnostics and data-driven strategies. David is a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in flotation with a PhD in this field from the JKMRC. David currently works at Newmont where his primary responsibility is in the technology and innovation space closely linked to process operations and the broader value-chain from mining to tails storage.

Rob Coleman is CEO of Core Resources, an integrated metallurgical laboratory and process engineering group based in Brisbane. Prior to Core Resources Rob worked in various roles for Outotec and JKTech. Rob received his Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Witwatersrand, a PhD in Minerals Processing from UQ’s Sustainability Mineral Institute and an MBA from the Australian Institute of Business.