Andrew has over 30 years of experience in the minerals industry, across a range of technical, operational and strategic leadership roles. He completed a Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical) from Melbourne University in 1987, and an MBA at Melbourne Business School in 1996. Following employment as a Senior Research Engineer with Comalco Ltd (now Rio Tinto Aluminium) from 1988-1996, he worked for WMC Resources Ltd from 1997-2005 in a number of strategic and operational management roles. Andrew re-joined Rio Tinto in 2006 as GM Technology for the Iron Ore product group, before moving into Rio Tinto’s corporate Technology & Innovation group, as GM Innovation and then Director Partnerships. While working for Rio Tinto, he also served as a director on the Boards of CRC Mining and the Parker Centre. In 2020, Andrew joined CSIRO as Research Director – Mineral Processing.

Niranjan is a PhD student at the JKMRC working on a project of the Advanced Process Prediction and Control group under Dr Gordon Forbes, Associate Professor Mohsen Yahyaei and Dr Marko Hilden. Niranjan completed his undergraduate and Masters' degrees in theoretical physics. After this, he worked as a physics lecturer in Purbanchal University, Nepal, for more than four years. Niranjan completed a further Masters degree in Statistics and Operations Research in 2017 where he specialised in Machine Learning. In 2018, he worked with Advantage Data consulting company as a Data Scientist, before commencing his PhD in early 2020, with the working title, Machine Learning Algorithms for the Calibration of Comminution Models.

Antti has been working with mineral processing applications for more than 20 years. His special profession is flotation modelling and plant design. He is one of the scientific advisors and developers behind the HSC Sim process modeling software and related plant on-line optimization platforms. Antti holds Ph.D. degree from the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland.

Lequan is a PhD Student of Chemical Engineering at the University of Melbourne. He is focusing on the simulation of particle aggregation and aggregate dispersion under the shear in the suspension, by applying Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) coupled with Discrete Element Method (DEM).

The use of automated tools for mineral characterisation has been core to many of Elaine’s research and teaching activities. Elaine is a co-editor of the recently published book ‘Process Mineralogy’ which included contributions from many internationally recognised experts in the field. Combining her passions for the subject matter and learning, Elaine has developed and delivered a number of courses with colleagues from Curtin University, The University of New South Wales and The Papua New Guinea University of Technology. Elaine engages with a wide range of learners including undergraduate students, recent graduates in industry and lifelong learners. She has developed a range of course materials, for both face-to-face and online delivery.

Mr Shuronjit Kumar Sarker is a PhD student at RMIT University. His project about the Geospatial database of tailing storage facilities in Australia and techno-economic assessment of rare earth elements recovery potential from old tailings of abandoned mine sites.

Before I started my joint-PhD study in 2020 at the University of Melbourne and the University of Birmingham, I obtained master thesis at the University College London (UK) and focused on a research project about computational fluid dynamics.

Dr. Nilanka Ekanayake is a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and working within the ARC Centre of Excellence for Enabling Eco-Efficient Beneficiation of Minerals. She received her PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2021 in the field of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) applied to suspension modelling. Her current research focuses on developing multiphase frameworks to solve solid-liquid separation in a wide range of industries, including mineral processing and waste-water treatment, to optimise the dewatering processes.

Casey Thomas undertook her PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Newcastle, under the supervision of Professors Grant Webber and Erica Wanless. Her research focused on the colloidal and interface science involved in the electrostatic formation of liquid marbles. In 2020 she moved to The University of Melbourne to begin a postdoctoral project with Professor George Franks, under the ARC Centre of Excellence for Eco-Efficient Beneficiation of Minerals.

Born in Rostock, Germany, Tom Kirstein graduated with a Master of Science in Mathematics from the University of Ulm in June of 2020. He went on to become a PhD candidate, supervised by Professor Volker Schmidt, at the Institute of Stochastics at the University of Ulm in August of 2020. His research is focused on the segmentation and stochastic analysis of particle systems under the thesis of “Multidimensional characterization of particle systems for process quality assessment, using methods of statistical learning“.