Mark Sonter started with 2 years as a high school science teacher, 6 years as a University Physics lecturer in Papua New Guinea (1970-1975), and then 40 years in mining industry in radiation and safety management. Mark has a MAppSc in Medical Physics from QUT, and is accredited as an expert in ionizing radiation safety with the Australian Radiation Protection Accreditation Board (ARPAB). Mark was directly responsible for all radiation planning, permitting, and implementation of controls, in two uranium mining projects, Olympic Dam and Beverley. He has consulted on many uranium, mineral sands, and rare earths projects in Australia and overseas, plus several contaminated site cleanup programs, most interestingly the Maralinga Test Site Cleanup. Over the last couple of decades, Mark has become involved in NORM management in the oil and gas industry, and in radiation consulting for several Rare Earths Projects, required because of the thorium content of the ores. Mark has followed space industrialization since the 1970s, incorporated Asteroid Enterprises and gave his first Space Conference presentation in 1986, and organized a placement as a visiting scholar at University of Arizona Lunar & Planetary Laboratory in 1995. During 1995-97 he wrote a research thesis on the Technical and Economic Feasibility of Mining the Near-Earth Asteroids, which became a much-quoted text. Mark has continued to study and write scholarly articles investigating various aspects of space mining, resulting in his present standing as a specific expert in the resources and mining prospects of the Near Earth Asteroids. He was a Co-Founder and the Director of Mining & Processing, of Deep Space Industries, incorporated in 2012, until resigning from its Board in March 2018, and has now re-established his own compaany, Asteroid Enterprises Pty Ltd, which he incorporated in 1986!

Dr. Carlos Espejel Garcia is ispace’s Space Resources Engineer working in the estimation of Space Resources, Space Reserves, as well as in the optimisation of the Space Resources Utilization Value Chain. He is also a member of the science team for the PROSPECT (ESA) project which is part of the Luna 27 mission to the Moon (Roscosmos). Dr. Carlos Espejel has a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering and Mining Engineering at the University of Queensland, a Master’s Degree in Mining Engineering at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, and a PhD in Mining Engineering at the University of Queensland. In addition he is currently doing a Postdoctoral Project on Space Resource Utilization (SRU) in Luxembourg in collaboration with a number of institutions (ispace, UNSW, University of Luxembourg, and Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR)). Before Dr. Espejel joined the space industry he worked for around 10 years in the international mining industry (Metalliferous Mining) as a Strategic Mine Planning Engineer, particularly in Scoping, Pre-feasibility, Feasibility, and applied research studies for green field (new projects) and brown field (operations) Tier 1 companies as Glencore, Anglo American, BHP, Teck and CRCORE.

Sophia Casanova received her bachelor’s degree at the University of Sydney majoring in geology and geophysics. She has worked as a geologist for Santos working in both conventional and unconventional exploration and mature development fields. Sophia is currently completing her PhD at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) within the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, Australia. Her current research is on the development of early exploration resource evaluation and geological uncertainty modelling techniques for off-Earth water ice resources on the Moon and Mars. Sophia has just completed a year-long internship at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as part of her PhD research. She is a recipient of the AusIMM Education Endowment Fund Scholarship.

Craig Lindley is a computer scientist working for CSIRO's Data61 and Minerals business units. He has a long history of creating collaborative industrial projects and is currently leading a new project on the topic of Predictive Analytics for Off-Earth Resource Modelling and Utilisation.

T M Pelech graduated from the University of New South Wales in 2013 with First Class honours in Mine Engineering. He has 6 years of industry experience in open pit and underground mine engineering and operations. Tim is currently completing a part-time PhD focused on Off-Earth Mining Systems at UNSW while working at Deflector Gold mine in WA. His research interests include mine optimisation and in-situ resource utilisation for space exploration.

Dr Noune Sophie Melkoumian is a senior lecturer at the School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering at the University of Adelaide. Her research interests are: applied mathematics, fracture mechanics, geomechanics, geotechnical engineering, active structural health monitoring, swarm robotics and machine learning. She has two PhD degrees; in Applied Mathematics and in Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, and ME and BE (University Medal) degrees in Civil and Structural Engineering.