Subject-Matter Experts

Glen has over 30 years’ experience in the resources industries in both research and commercial roles. He is a Principal Research Fellow at the Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI) at The University of Queensland, where he has worked since 2004.

Glen's research focuses on the area of responsible resource use and processing, and he leads the Industrial Ecology and Circular Economy group in SMI. In 2020, he took on the role of leader of the Operational Solutions Program in the new Co-operative Research Centre for Transformations in Mining Economies (CRC TiME). From 1991 until commencing at SMI, Glen was a mineral processing consultant at JKTech Pty Ltd and from 1988 to 1990, he worked as a consultant for a UK based advanced process control consultancy company for KBC Process Automation. Glen is a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM), a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and is a Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland.

Dr Cathy Evans is an experienced mineral processing engineer and geometallurgist whohas been applying her extensive knowledge of geometallurgy, applied mineralogy, comminution and separation processes in geometallurgical projects and the optimisation of mineral processing operations for over 30 years.

Through her career in industry, consulting and now applied research at the University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute, Cathy has worked on a broad range of ore types and commodities including lead, zinc, copper, nickel, gold, silver, platinum minerals and iron ore. Her expert knowledge of how the mineralogy and texture of ores impact their processing behaviours spans the mining process chain from comminution, through separation to tailings disposal and smelting. Cathy enjoys sharing her knowledge with the next generation of metallurgists, including teaching applied mineralogy to undergraduate engineers, supervising postgraduate research students and delivering professional development courses on applied process mineralogy and geometallurgy to industry professionals both in person and online.

The use of automated tools for mineral characterisation has been core to many of Elaine’s research and teaching activities. The Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (JKMRC) houses a number of these tools including MLA (Mineral Liberation Analyser) and X-ray micro tomography. Elaine currently manages this facility, which supports research at the Centre, across the University and provides services to industry.

Elaine is a co-editor of the recently published book ‘Process Mineralogy’ that included contributions from many internationally recognised experts in the field. Combining her passions for the subject matter and learning, Elaine has also 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.

Andre Van der Westhuizen has been managing MPTech since 2016, where he coordinates commercial technology transfer projects, on-site surveys, process optimization and design projects. Andre holds a BEng from the University of Stellenbosch and an MSc from the University of Cape Town.

His early career involved several years as a plant metallurgist for Anglo Platinum on their concentrators in Rustenburg, after which he was appointed as a senior technical officer involved with undergraduate practical training of metallurgists in the Western Cape. In 2002, he joined MPTech, the technology transfer unit within the Centre for Minerals Research. In addition to research projects in the area of comminution, he was involved in numerous on-site process improvement projects in the areas of comminution and flotation. His main area of research is stirred milling and how it relates to downstream processing.

Professor Jim Finch is a recognized world leader in flotation, having recently retired from his position as Gerald G. Hatch Chair in Mining and Metallurgical Engineering at McGill University, Canada.

Dr Kathryn Hadler is a chemical engineer specialising in mineral separations. Until 2018, she focused her research on froth flotation. She developed an optimisation methodology, air recovery, to improve flotation performance and control. More recently, she is studying the dry separation of minerals on Earth and on the Moon. Dry mineral processing has the potential to transform the environmental footprint of terrestrial mineral processing operations. On the Moon, it will enable the reliable and consistent production of usable resources from locally available material.

Dr Nerrida Scott brings a breadth of experience from a range of resource and manufacturing industries including coal, alumina, aluminium, phosphates, plastics, automotive components and paints.She graduated with a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering in 1997 along with a business degree and commenced her career with Orica.After gaining experience in plastics and paints manufacture, Nerrida joined the automotive components manufacturer, Ajax, where she performed the role of plant engineer, supporting heat treatment, plating, laser sorting and packaging functions with shutdown maintenance and various engineering projects.She then moved to Albright & Wilson where as a Production Superintendent, she was responsible for supervision of a major hazard facility with various operations functions including the production of Sodium Tripolyphosphate, phosphoric acid, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate and Calgon.

Nerrida’s manufacturing experience led to a move to resources in 2005 where she was a business improvement specialist (Lean) at the Yarwun Alumina Refinery.In 2007, she transferred to the Rio Tinto Coal division in Brisbane in a coal processing specialist role, supporting the coal preparation plants at sites and also providing resource assessment assistance to the Geology team in Brisbane.In 2012, Nerrida left Rio Tinto to commence a PhD at the JKMRC, with a focus on Dense Medium Cyclone circuits.Since completing her PhD in 2017, Nerrida has worked primarily as a consultant to ACARP as a Coal Preparation Research Coordinator.She also conducts lectures for the Australian Coal Preparation Society in the area of coarse coal beneficiation.

Kathy obtained her PhD in metallurgical engineering from the University of Arizona, USA. After working for 10 years at Mintek and 11 years for Anglo American in South Africa, she now consults independently, mainly in the areas of solvent extraction, ion exchange, and electrowinning of base and precious metals for hydrometallurgical applications.

She has a client base spanning six continents and commodity expertise that includes copper, cobalt, uranium, nickel, zinc, titanium, vanadium, platinum-group metals, and gold.

Kathy has authored or co-authored over 90 publications. She is actively involved in various educational and mentoring initiatives and regularly presents accredited professional development training courses around the world. She currently chairs the Copper Cobalt Africa conference series and serves on the editorial boards of two journals.Kathy has been awarded the Milton E. Wadsworth Award of the SME, the Silver Medal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and the Bronze Medal of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science.

Professor Tim Napier-Munn is a mineral engineer with degrees from Imperial College, London, and the University of the Witwatersrand, and has 50 years of experience in applied research and development.His early work was with De Beers in South Africa, and lecturing at Imperial College. He joined the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (JKMRC) at the University of Queensland in 1985, being appointed its Director in 1997. In 2001, Tim became inaugural Managing Director of JKTech Pty Ltd (the Commercial Division of the JKMRC). He retired from these two roles in 2004 and now works part-time for the JKMRC and as a consultant for JKTech.He was appointed Emeritus Professor at the University of Queensland in 2015.

Tim has published more than 150 papers and articles on topics in mineral processing and statistics. He was the editor of the JKMRC’s ‘Blue Book’ on Mineral Comminution Circuits, and the seventh edition of Wills’ Mineral Processing Technology. He has delivered professional development courses on statistics for mineral engineers for over 25 years, and consulted to industry on the planning and analysis of plant trials.In 2014 he published his book ‘Statistical Methods for Mineral Engineers - How to Design Experiments and Analyse Data’.

Tim Napier-Munn is a recipient of the Futers Gold Medal of the UK Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (2009), the AusIMM President’s Award (2011) and the Sir Willis Connolly Memorial Medal (2015). He was the AusIMM Delprat Distinguished Lecturer in 2016, and was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the AusIMM in 2020.