Prof. Steve Hall is a leading Australian academic in mining education. He was the Director of Curtin University’s Western Australian School of Mines from 2010 until early 2016. This involved responsibility for multiple campus delivery of programs in applied geology, spatial sciences, exploration geophysics,
mining engineering and metallurgical engineering to over 3,000 students.

He commenced the role of Executive Director of Mining Education Australia (MEA) in January 2016. MEA is a collaborative venture in curriculum development and delivery involving three partner Universities (New South Wales, Queensland and Adelaide). Collectively the four member Universities account for over 80% of Australia’s 4-year BEng Mining Engineering graduates. Steve is a metallurgical engineer with interests in socio-environmental aspects of mining, including mine closure.

He has taught and researched in the UK, Canada and Australia. He is a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and an Academician of the Russian Academy of Mining Sciences. He has extensive recent experience of African mining and mining education.

He is assisting with establishment of a new School of Geology and Mining at The University of Rwanda.

Click here to read Prof. Hall’s most recent interview ‘Australia’s next mining boom is on its way’.

Karen Hanghøj is the Chief Technology and Education Officer at EIT RawMaterials. Karen holds a PhD in Geology from University of Copenhagen, and has worked extensively with research on geological processes in the lower crust and mantle and their associated mineral deposits.

She has spent more than ten years working in the US as a Research Associate at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and as a Research Scientist at Columbia University and has furthermore worked as a consultant to the minerals exploration industry for more than 20 years. Before joining EIT Karen was head of Department of Petrology and Economic Geology at the Geological Survey for Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) and involved in several EU- funded mineral raw materials projects and networks.

Prof. Manchao He is currently an Academician in Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor at China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing (CUMTB). He is also the Director of State Key Laboratory for Geomechanics and Deep Underground Engineering in Beijing, China. He is recognized as the leader of the Chinese Union for Mining Innovation (CUMI). He served as the Vice President of International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM), Chairman of ISRM Education Fund Committee, and President of ISRM Chinese National Group.

He received his Bachelor and Master Degree in engineering geology from Changchun College of Geology in 1981 and 1985 respectively, and obtained his Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics from CUMTB in 1989. He got an Honorary Doctorate from University of Mons in Belgium in 2012. He mainly engaged in the research of Rock Mechanics and Engineering, including mining technologies, landslide, active fault stability analysis, monitoring and control, rockburst mechanism, etc. He has published 4 books and over 190 papers in technical journals and in conference proceedings. He also serves on the Editorial Board of several Journals. And he received 4 National Prizes in his career.

Prof. Dr. Anatoly Okhotin was born on 25.03.1958 in Irkutsk, Russia. After leaving secondary school he entered Irkutsk Polytechnic Institute and graduated from it in 1980 with a degree in Mine Surveying. Since 1980 has been working at the Department of Mine Surveying at first as an assistant, then as an associate professor, and at present as a professor.

Since 2005 Anatoly Okhotin has been the Head of the Department of Mine Surveying at Irkutsk National Research Technical University. He gives lectures on the following subjects: Mine Surveying, Subsoil Geometry, Higher Geodesy.

He is a member of the Central Council of the Russian Union of Mining Surveyors and a Vice-President of the International Society for Mine Surveying. Under his leadership air and terrestrial lidar surveys have been introduced in Siberia. He has also been the initiator of the introduction of the surveying outsourcing at mining enterprises in Russia.

Anatoly Okhotin is married with four children.

His hobbies are: skiing, travelling, studying foreign languages.

Prof. Axel Preusse has been a professor and Head of Chair at the department of Mine Surveying, Mining Subsidence Engineering and Geophysics in Mining at the University of Aachen (RWH), Germany, since 1997. From 2000 until 2005 he was a guest professor in Mine Surveying at the University of Mining in Leoben (Austria). He is the Head of Chair at the department of Nuclear Engineering and Technology Transfer, RWTH Aachen University, Germany from 2015 to 2017.

His main research interests are in the fields of mine surveying and mineral deposit management, surveying, prediction of ground subsidences and mining induced seismicity, mining subsidence engineering, development of unconventional gas such as coalbed methane (CBM) and gas in active or abandoned mines and geothermal projects, application of geographic information systems in mining, and risk assessment for abandoned mine areas.

Prof. Axel Preusse has outstanding experiences in numerous research projects in all fields of his research interests and has published more than 150 papers in considerable journals and conference proceedings.

He has also published several textbooks. He has given numerous speeches at distinguished conferences and other important expert meetings. He is the board member and publisher of the magazine for mine surveying “Markscheidewesen” (DMV), Vice-President of the International Society for Mine Surveying (ISM), German representative of APCOM (Applications of computers in the minerals industries) and Chairman of Mine Gas Initiative NRW, as part of the EnergyAgentur.NRW.