Krzysztof (Kris) Biegaj has 30 years+ mining experience in various parts of the World, most of it in Australia. He is originally from Poland, where he had obtained mining engineering degree, with honors. Since March 1986 he has been living and working in Australia. His experience includes 7 years in underground coal mining in Poland (management and mines rescue), 4.5 years with the Western Australian (WA) Department of Mines (2 years as a Special Inspector of Mines/Senior Ventilation Officer based in Karratha and 2.5 years as a District Inspector of Mines/Deputy Regional Mining Engineer in Kalgoorlie). Since April 1992 when he had joined WMC Resources Ltd (then the biggest Mining Company in Australia), at their Kambalda Nickel Operations in WA, he has been working in mine management as assistant mine manager/mine manager/mining manager/general manager/business improvement mining consultant, with majority of it in/from Australia but also in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ghana, Mongolia and Philippines. Both underground (majority) and open pit mining, iron ore included. Since 2000 Kris Biegaj in parallel to his mine management work, through his Ausvac Mining Pty Ltd has been running mine floor material recovery operations, with the use of a truly mobile supersucker – a giant mobile vacuum cleaner designed and built in Kalgoorlie WA, to carry out winzing. The mobile supersucker is based on the late 60-ties of last Century South Australian machines that have been used to mine opals i.e. designed and constructed in Australia. My affiliation with Dr Simon Dominy goes back to 2003 when he contacted me ( I was then living in Kalgoorlie) and we together had written a paper on winzing, which I had presented at the 2003 Bendigo Geological Conference.In 2008 Simon Dominy made me a member of Organising Committee of the of Narrow Vein Mining Conference held in Ballarat and in 2017/18 – he made me a member of Organising Committee for the forthcoming Narrow Vein Mining Conference (postponed until 2019).

Michael J Noakes, MEnvStud, BSc (Min Tech), ARSM, FAusIMM, FIMM, CEng, is a career environmental and metallurgical engineer with extensive corporate and consulting experience in the mineral resources industry. He has worked in research and development, and as an operator, with CRA (Bougainville Project), The Anaconda Company (U.S.A.) and Engelhard Minerals and Chemicals Corporation (U.S.A.). On returning to Australia in 1979 he established a very successful consulting practice in Sydney and has since worked on numerous resource projects in Australia and overseas. During this time he identified many operations that are wasteful of their resources discarding large proportions of their contained metal values either by operating at poor metallurgical recoveries (for whatever reason) or by not realising their full values because of high net smelter or refining charges imposed by remote tertiary metallurgical treatments. In addition, some operations are developing huge environmental liabilities due to improper waste disposal and other unsustainable practices. This led Michael to developing the concept of EcoTechnology which addresses many of the negative operating practices in the industry.

Lachlan MacDonald is Core’s technical lead of the Toowong Process Technology. Lachlan has managed the development of the Toowong Process Technology across all stages of technology development including proof of concept, technology development and innovation, demonstration of the Toowong Process technology through a $4.5m pilot trial, and collaborative engineering and feasibility studies.

Maedeh has PhD and M.Sc. in mineral processing (Flotation) and B.Sc. in mining engineering with over 12 years’ experience in process and mining engineering as a process engineer, flotation researcher, and mining engineer. She is currently process engineer at Ausenco, a Brisbane based engineering and project management business. Maedeh has provided engineering services to small to large-scale projects with a focus on the processing of copper, lead and zinc, and arsenic-bearing minerals. Her experience covers a wide range of project phases including optimisation of flotation circuits through data analysis, flotation modelling and simulation, conceptual, scoping, and feasibility studies and design.

Ray Shaw has over 40 years experience in Pigments, Mineral Processing, Pyrometallurgy and Hydrometallurgy with Rio Tinto and in private consultantcy. He has filed over 30 patents in Alumina Refining and Aluminium Smelting, Copper Hydrometallury, Potash Processing, Oil Shale Processing, Microwave based Sorting, ZnO Production and Coarse Particle Flotation. He led the development and construction of a Copper Leach–SX–EW plant and managed the Global External R&D program for Rio Tinto. He has worked extensively in energy demand within Mining and Mineral Processing. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and of the AusIMM.

Virginia obtained a Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical) degree from the University of Melbourne, Australia in 1987. Virginia started working in the gold industry with experience in operations and management. She joined Mount Isa Mines where she worked in both copper and lead zinc concentrators as plant and project metallurgists and in research. As owners representative she delivered several successful projects during her time in Mount Isa including a flotation expansion improving plant performance by 2% recovery. Virginia moved to Canada to join INCO in Sudbury, Ontario the Process Technology Group at Clarabelle Mill leading a small team of engineers and technologists. In 2006 INCO became part of Vale. The role expanded to include technical oversight of all the Canadian Mills (Thompson Mill, Sudbury’s Clarabelle Mill and Voisey’s Bay Mill) and the Copper Cliff Smelter Matte Separation Plant. After leaving Vale she joined Glencore in their consulting and testwork services division at XPS in Sudbury as General Manager Process Mineralogy providing consulting services both internally to Glencore as well as the industry globally. After more than 25 years living in mining towns she relocated to Brisbane in 2015 joining Glencore Technology introducing and supporting their innovative technologies to the industry globally. Virginia enjoys developing people and improving processes.