Since 2023, Nalith Udugampola has served as a postgraduate researcher at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, pursuing a Ph.D. in Electrical and Telecommunication Engineering. Prior to this, he accumulated nearly 2 years of experience as an electronics and embedded systems engineer in the industry. In 2021, he graduated with a B.Sc. (Hons) in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. Currently, Nalith is dedicated to researching LoRa-based wireless mesh networks for underground mines and tunnels. His research areas encompass wireless networking, low-power embedded systems, and digital electronic design.

Heru is a mining engineer with more than seventeen years of mining experience. His current role is junior mining manager with mining operation department, PT Indo Muro Kencana (PT IMK), a surface gold & silver mine, Murung Raya, Central Kalimantan province, Indonesia. He is responsible for implementing safety in mining operations, mining strategies, mining operation management and also safe and efficient blasting practices that will support PT IMK objective to increase safety and achieve good mining performance. His previous roles were a Sr. drill & blast superintendent (surface gold & silver mine) and a drill & blast superintendent (surface coal mining). Heru studied mining engineering in Trisakti University (Jakarta, Indonesia) and has a master’s degree in mining engineering (mining geomechanics) from UNSW (University of New South Wales), Sydney, Australia. In his spare time, Heru teaches Drill & Blast courses for mining engineering students in Indonesia and plays the drums in a band (Silver Elephant band a.k.a Golden Muro band).

Alan Varghese is an accomplished mechanical engineer currently undertaking a Ph.D. in Digitalisation of Centrifugal Slurry Pumps at the University of Western Australia. Simultaneously, he serves as the Product Head – Pumps Digital at Metso. With a Master of Business Administration, Alan specialises in slurry pumps and their aftermarket applications, particularly within the metals and mineral processing industries. His diverse expertise combines technical proficiency with strategic management in the field.

Kun Wang, Ph.D, associate professor in the field of mining safety, from Shandong University of Science and Technology (SDUST). He obtained his Ph.D. degree from University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB), collaborating with the University of Exeter (UoE) in the United Kingdom. Additionally, he conducted post-doctoral research at SDUST.
His research focuses on tailings dam disaster prevention and control, unmanned aerial vehicle remote sensing applications in the mining industry. Throughout his career, Kun Wang has led various research projects as the principal investigator, including the prestigious National Natural Science Foundation and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province.

I’m Senior Mining Engineer with a master’s in applied finance.
I have 19 years’ experience in hard rock mining. I started my operations experience in diamond mining in South Africa. I immigrated to Australia to work for Newmont. I started as a drill and blast engineer and worked up to medium-term planning. I then worked as a Senior Mine Engineer on various mine implementations, bringing new mines into production for Xtrata, Aurelia and Westgold. In these roles I was responsible for contract management, long term scheduling, annual budgets, external reserve reports, managing the mine technical service teams. During my time at Westgold I was the Regional Manager of the Cue operations.
I have spent the last 10 years working on mine studies and bringing new mines into operations. The mine studies have ranged from desktop studies to feasibility studies, many of which are now or have been in operation.
I volunteer for the CSIRO STEM Professionals in schools’ program to share my love for mining and present the opportunities mining offers to students and I’m a mentor in the AusIMM WIMnet mentoring program in order to promote and encourage young professionals.

Living at Kalgoorlie's Superpit for some 14 years and inspired by my Father Colin Yates into applying technology for more profitable and safer U/G mining practices and then gifted some 2000 assaying results by my Step Father Merv Don, from his licenced assaying business whranging fro en he passed on, I added a couple of practical engineering degrees from Curtin University and set about being innovative in the shared mining environment.

The application of this background has resulted in multiple Prospect Australian Mining WINNING awards and Zenith Process and Control Engineering Awards, ranging from smart horizontal and vertical drilling systems with included 3D carbon rich duct printing, ore reduction into tetrahedrals and octahedrals so no explosives and no crushing is needed to extract wanted minerals and remove the need for environmentally challenging tailings, while fuelling it all from methanol fuels extracted from drought tolerant carob trees,
with the added bonus of the refined adhesives from the carob pods being used in long life graphene aluminium ion batteries, under the astute hyperspectral imaging discovery tools.

Finding the best. Mining the Best. And leaving the rest has some of the better and profitable mining outcomes possible with multiple environmental benefits.

Dr. Yin is associated with the School of Resources and Safety Engineering at Central South University and specializes in Safety Technology and Engineering. His primary focus is dust pollution monitoring, where Dr. Yin mainly employs digital image analysis and deep learning. Dr. Yin's innovative approach involves establishing efficient mathematical relationships and developing online systems customized for real-time dust pollution assessment.

Haida Yu is a second-year Ph.D. student at the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, UNSW. He is devoted to rock mechanics and rock engineering. His research topic is about mining and engineering in extreme environments, such as high and low temperature, deep ocean and deep ground high pressure, water erosion, chemical corrosion, etc. He also conducted some research on tailings backfill and innovative cement materials.

Zexin Yu is a PhD candidate at the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. He holds B.E. degree in Structural Engineering from Fuzhou University, China and M.E. degrees in Civil Engineering from UNSW, Australia. His research interests include (1) data driven approaches based on geophysical logging data; (2) gas content evaluation for underground coal mines; (3) interpretation of geophysical logs obtained in coal mining activities. He has also participated in industry-sponsored projects.

Yuansheng Zhang , graduated with a Ph.D. in Digital Mining Engineering from Northeastern University, china. mainly focusing on digital mining and intelligent mining. have led and completed over 100 national and enterprise projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation and the National Key Research and development Program. Applied for over 20 patents, registered over 30 software copyrights, and published over 80 academic papers.

Huili Zhang received the B.Sc. degree in energy and power engineering from the University of Science and Technology Beijing, China, in 2019, and the M.Sc. degree in renewable energy engineering from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, in 2021. She is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree with the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Her research interests mainly focus on vibration energy harvesting and sensing for mine internet of things.

Lei Zhu received his B.E. in Mining Engineering from Anhui University of Science and Technology in 2019 and Master in Mining Engineering from China University of Mining and Technology in 2022. At present, he is studying for his PhD degree in the discipline of mining engineering, particularly in hydraulic fracturing in UNSW, aiming to improve safety and sustainability in mines by conducting fundamental experiments and numerical simulation.