Dr Luke Balzan is the Chief Technology Officer with Scantech International, an Adelaide-based manufacturer of mineral analysis equipment for elemental, moisture and particle size analysis of conveyed flows in real time, allowing process control decisions to be made in a timely manner to effect positive process control. After working as an R&D electrical engineer for a number of years, he returned to university and completed his PhD in electrical engineering in 2012. He started working for Scantech as a service engineer soon after, and was promoted to the position of Technical Consultant in 2014, to Technical Manager in 2018, and Chief Technology Officer in 2020. He is responsible for Scantech’s R&D and product development, calibration and ongoing support.

Thomas has broad engineering experience in both underground and surface mining operations, with exposure to industry in both coal and metals, and in explosive technologies, having completed a thesis at The University of Queensland, focused on the manufacture, implementation, and analysis of novel explosive technologies and formulations. He has experience in operations, and has been involved in planning, ventilation, support, and development contracts across numerous underground mines in Queensland and New South Wales. He has also worked in tendering and estimation across projects for underground and surface coal, infrastructure, and engineering contracts including port and rail operations. His expertise is in drill and blast design for open cut operations, and blast modelling with a focus on improving fragmentation for increased downstream productivity.

Dr Eiman Amini is a mineral processing specialist with experience in process optimisations and scale-up which includes process model development, project management, technology group management, value chain diagnostics, control data analysis and plant surveys. Eiman has worked in several countries with extensive exposure to comminution and flotation process modelling, simulation, forecasting and optimisation. Eiman also has history of working effectively in cross-functional and cross-cultural environments with consistent success in research and innovation, coaching technical teams and process performance improvement in research institutions and companies such as JKMRC, SGS, Rio Tinto and Orica.

Ziming Ye is a PhD student at The University of Queensland and he holds a Bachelor degree in Mineral processing from China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing). Ziming's PhD thesis focuses on the dynamic simulation of materials handling and storage in dry comminution circuits. This project is developing dynamic models of materials handling and storage to understand the dynamic behaviour including particle size segregation, un-even and un-equal mass splits, and time delays. This practice will enable us to quantify the impact of fluctuations on the performance of dry comminution processes such as screening and crushing. The outcome of this research is designing a platform of materials handling and storage that can simulate different operation situations and evaluate various control strategies in response to each type of fluctuation.

Mining engineer and researcher with over 10 years of experience in consulting, academia and mining operations in Chile and Australia. The central line that guides her work is a passion for implementing data-driven solutions and state-of-the-art technology to improve the efficiency ans sustainability of mining processes.

Mark Knackstedt is a Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and the National CTLab at The Australian National University, as well as Director of the ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre in M3D Innovations. Mark is globally recognised as the pioneer of Digital Rock Physics. For this work he won several awards including the 2012 Rio Tinto Eureka Prize for Innovation in Commercialisation and the prestigious ENI Award in 2010, acknowledged globally as the Nobel Prize in Energy. Mark was the 2019 Kimberley Clark Interpore Lecturer, a Society of Petroluem Engineers Distinguished Lecturer (2015-16) and past (2007-2008, 2009-2010, 2012-2013) SPWLA Distinguished Speaker. He was awarded the George C. Matson Memorial Award from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in 2009, and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering. He holds a BSc from Columbia University and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Rice University.