Cheryl Allen received her B.Sc in Mining Engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in the United States and has held various mining engineering positions in Canada and the USA over the past 30+ years. She currently holds the role of Manager Ventilation Design & Tech Support for Vale North Atlantic Operations where she leads a team to develop the strategy, standards and guidelines, long to short range designs and execution support for ventilation projects and operating systems across Canada. She also continues to be the Subject Matter Expert for Vale with regard to ventilation matters. Cheryl has published in the areas of ventilation technology, design, practice and health and safety as well as speaking at conferences, symposia and a CIM Distinguished Lecturer. She has been involved with numerous research projects, is currently a Board Member of the Mining Diesel Emissions Council, participates on several standards committees and the Ventilation and Industrial Hygiene sub-committee of the Ontario Mine Legislative Review Committee.

Dr D J (Rick) Brake is a Chartered Practicing Mining Engineer, based in Brisbane, Australia, with 40 years’ experience in mining. Rick was Ventilation Superintendent for the four Mount Isa underground mines in the mid 1980s. He has been a member of the Editorial or Organising Committees for many ventilation conferences. He has consulted on more than 150 mining projects globally and he been called as an expert witness in a number of legal proceedings. He has presented over 100 training courses on mine ventilation, egress and entrapment, heat stress, airborne contaminants and mine cooling and heating, has published almost 60 technical papers in these areas and has given keynote speeches at many conferences. In addition to consulting, he is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Resources Engineering Program at Monash University, Australia. In 2017, he was granted the Howard Hartman award by the Society of Mining Engineers for “Outstanding Service in the Field of Mine Ventilation Engineering”, the first non-North American to be honoured with this award.

Katie is an experienced Mine Ventilation Engineer with over 7 years operational and consulting experience in the underground mining industry. Katie holds a bachelor’s degree [honours] from the WA School of Mines, an underground shift supervisor’s certificate and an emergency response certificate three. Her industry experience consists of completing her underground time and obtaining her underground shift supervisors’ certificate, working as a drill and blast engineer, ventilation engineer, scheduling and planning engineer. Employed as a Ventilation Consultant on the design of mine ventilation and refrigeration systems. Since joining BBE she has been involved in everything from concept level to EPCM level projects at sites such as Olympic Dam, Tanami, CSA, Sunrise Dam and Telfer. She has conducted operational and life-of-mine ventilation reviews for operating mines and also carried out site performance assessment tests on both permanent and rental refrigeration plants. She has also been involved in the Snowy Hydro tunnelling projects and nanoDPM research work in collaboration with the Chem Centre conducted at Sunrise Dam.