Professor Peter Dowd has more than 30 years experience in academic research, teaching and administration and consulting to the mining industry extensively in geostatistics and mineral economics in Africa, Australasia, Europe, North America and South America and the petroleum industry in the UK and Saudi Arabia. The context of much of his work has been the modelling and estimation of orebodies, coal deposits and hydrocarbon reservoirs, often in very complex geological settings; the generation of three-dimensional orebody models as the basis for optimal mine design and scheduling; establishing resources and reserves together with associated confidence limits; the design of blasting and loading operations to optimise mineral extraction; and the quantification of geological and technical risk associated with resource extraction.

Professor Dowd's contributions to the development and application of geostatistics were recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1998 when he was elected to Fellowship of the Academy. In 2006 he was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in recognition of his contributions to geostatistics and for leadership in engineering education.

He has published over 190 papers and parts of books in the fields of geostatistics, stochastic modelling and spatial statistics, operational research, computer-aided mine design, mine finance and valuation and has developed commercialised software products for the minerals industry.

Presentation: Stochastic Modelling of Fractures in Rock Massess

Professor Alan Bye is the Director of the W H Bryan Mining and Geology Research Centre at the Sustainable Minerals Institute (University of Queensland). The BRC’s research excellence is recognized in the fields of Mass Mining, blasting engineering and Geology-Mine-Plant integration. He was previously involved with Anglo American for over 10 years and has held a range of cross-discipline positions in the areas of geology, geotechnical engineering, mine to mill, blasting engineering and mining manager.

Presentation: Generating Value from Geometallurgy

John Vann is a geologist and geostatistician with over 20 years experience of base metal, coal, nickel, iron, gold, bauxite, manganese and copper projects. John has taught more than 150 short courses and seminars on resource estimation, geostatistics, sampling and risk topics since 1993 in Australia, the USA, Canada, UK, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Laos, South Africa, Turkey and PNG. He has been working on geometallurgical projects for copper and iron in the past several years. John is a Director of QG and holds degrees in geology from RMIT and the University of New England and geostatistics from the University of Leeds. John is Adjunct Professor of Geology at the University of Western Australia and Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Geostatistics at the University of Adelaide. John has also been invited faculty for Duke Corporate Education for 12 executive mining programs delivered in Australia, the USA, South Africa and Canada. He has published over 20 papers in resource estimation related topics.

Presentation: Audit Readiness of Mineral Resources - Are You There Yet?

Andy Lapworth has worked for the Datamine Group since 1990, he currently holds the position of Technical Director with the responsibility for the overall architecture of Datamine's solution footprint. Prior to joining Datamine Andy gained experience working at Mount Isa and as a mining consultant in Melbourne. Andy is a chartered mining engineer and his recent consulting work has centred around building geotechnical models and their use for mine planning at open cast mines in Africa and South America.

Dr Malcolm Newton is leading Datamine's Multiparametric modelling initiative and has been at the forefront of development of Datamine's Geostatistical systems. Malcolm is actively involved in the P843 AMIRA project on geometallurgical modelling. Malcolm has worked for Datamine Corporate Limited for 28 years in a variety of managerial and technical roles and has been based at various times in the UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia and USA offices. Responsible for geostatistics developments in Datamine's Studio software, he has also undertaken a wide variety of consulting assignments in resource modelling and geostatistics and carried out advanced and specialised training courses in modelling and associated areas as well as extensive research and case study experience for modelling of geometallurgical parameters (AMIRA P843 GeM Project).

Presentation: Estimating Confidence of Mineable Resources

Jason has worked in the mining industry since 1994 predominantly in underground and open pit mine geology roles, and has consulted in mineral resource modelling and estimation since 2006. He has held senior positions with WMC Resources, Gold Fields, Glencore's CSA Mine (Australia) and as a consultant with Snowden in Brisbane. At CSA Mine Jason was the Geology Superintendent responsible for mine exploration, grade control, resource modelling/estimation and reconciliation. He also carried out technical reviews at operations in South America and Turkey and consulted in resource modelling and estimation. Jason has experience in a range of commodities including gold, base metals, bauxite, feldspar, talc and kaolin.

Presentation: Validation of Coal Seam Codes Versus Sampling - An Important Step Prior to Modelling

Alex has 17 years experience in underground and open pit mining geology, mineral resource evaluation, and operational management roles with companies including Gold Fields, WMC Resources, and Snowden. He has a depth of geological expertise in commodities including gold, copper, uranium, silver, bauxite, mineral sands, nickel, and coal. This includes mineral resource evaluation, production geology, drilling programme management, due diligence, NI 43-101 technical reporting, sampling, reconciliation, and feasibility studies. Alex has worked in Australia, Asia, Africa, North and South America, and Nothern Europe and has delivered and designed public courses on resource estimation, geostatistics, sampling, reconciliation, grade control, and QAQC.

Presentation: Approaches to Resource Model Validation

Michael has over 20 years experience in the mining industry working in roles in exploration and mining throughout Australia and overseas.

Prior to joining Snowden in November 2003, he was employed by Newmont Australia (previously Normandy Mining) as a senior resource geologist involved in the resource estimation and optimisation of a range of commodities and deposit styles. Michael has specific experience in geostatistical resource estimation, optimisation of both open cut and underground resources, grade control and risk assessment.

Since joining Snowden, Michael has been involved in simulation risk studies, resource estimates, resource review and audits and mine valuation studies.

Presentation: Comparison of Unfolding vs Dynamic Search Ellipse

John is a self confessed "mine geologist by trade" who has specialised in gold resource estimation and has extensive experience in mine geology and extensional exploration. John graduated from the University of Tasmania (CODES) in 1992, then spent a year working for RGC on the West Coast of Tasmania in underground tin mining and base metal exploration. He then joined WMC at St Ives Gold Mines (now owned by Gold Fields) performing various underground, open pit and resource development roles. This included Australasian and International project work, and 4 years as the Mine Geology Manager. John's current responsibilities as Principal Resource Geologist include the quality of the sites resource models, as well as management of the sites technical mentoring programme and geological database.

Presentation: Ensuring that Model = Geology - QKNA in 3D

Richard is a geologist with over 19 years experience in exploration, mining and resource estimation. Prior to joining Snowden in 2004, Richard worked as technical consultant for Datamine Australia (mining software), an exploration geologist for BHP Iron Ore (Goldsworthy) Pty Ltd, and an underground mine (gold) geologist for Kitchener Mining NL.

Since joining Snowden, Richard has been involved in resource estimates, audits, technical documentation and training. Richard has an extensive knowledge in the use of Datamine and Surpac software and has presented public training courses in the use of both packages. Specific work with Snowden comprises resource estimation and reviews for a number of deposit types including gold (Australia, Mali, Malaysia and Indonesia), iron ore (Australia and India), copper (Australia, Philippines) nickel sulphide (Australia) nickel laterite (Turkey, Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania), PGE (Philippines, South Africa) and mineral sands (Australia).

A member of the AusIMM, Richard has charted professional status and is deemed to be a competent person with regard to the reporting of iron ore, gold and nickel deposits.

Presentation: Death to Rotated Block Models

Sonia has more than 25 years experience in the mining industry in a range of commodities including gold, base metals, iron ore and uranium. Sonia's primary areas of expertise are 3D geological modelling, geostatistical analysis, and resource estimation, project management, and technical data collection protocols.

Sonia commenced her career in exploration with Rension Goldfields and in 1994, whilst with the Placer Dome Group, moved into the resource evaluation and project development area. Since then she has undertaken resource evaluation work, contributed to the geology and resource component of mining studies, and undertaken technical review and due diligence work on gold, base metals and uranium deposits within Australia, PNG, China, Indonesia, Laos, Spain, Cyprus, Turkey and Kazakhstan.

Sonia joined AMC in 2006 in their London office where she assisted in establishing a client base in the European region and is now based in their Brisbane office. Sonia has a MSc in Economic Geology and Mining and a BSc in Applied Geology, as well as postgraduate qualifications in Project Management.

Co-Presentation with David Boakye: 2D + 3D = Modelling and Estimation of Narrow Vein Style Deposits

David has over 20 years experience in the mining industry in a range of commodities including gold and base metals. David's expertise is in the evaluation of mineral deposits for exploration and production control in open pit and underground mining operations. He has advanced geostatistical ore body modelling and specialist Datamine skills.

David began his career at Anglogold Ashanti Obuasi Mine, where he gained experience in various exploration, production and resource positions eventually moving into the role of Chief Geologist-Resource Evaluation. In 2007 David moved from Ghana to Australia with his family and took up a postgraduate research position at the University of Queensland in geostatistical modelling of geometallurgical variables.

David joined AMC in February 2008 and has since worked on mineral resource evaluation studies and technical reviews for gold, base metals and uranium projects in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Dominican Republic and Kyrgyzstan. He holds an MSc in Mineral Resource and Environmental Geostatistics from the University of Leeds, and a BSc in Geological Engineering.

Co-Presentation with Sonia Konopa: 2D + 3D = Modelling and Estimation of Narrow Vein Style Deposits

Alan has in excess of 20 years industry experience specialising in resource and technical computing roles. He commenced his career in Kalgoorlie working for several Junior companies before joining AMC based in Perth. He then joined WMC working at their Agnew Gold operation and transferred to Gold Fields when they acquired the operation in 2001. Alan has been using Datamine for over 20 years and has extensive experience developing menus and scripting systems. This year Alan has developed and rolled out Studio 3 training across Gold Fields international operations.

Presentation: Scripting

Chris trained as a mining engineer and has worked in industry with BHP and Newmont on technical software applications, in research and development with Datamine, and in academia as Professor and Director of the WH Bryan Mining and Geology Centre at the Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland. In the past three years Chris has been a key researcher in the AMIRA P884 PRIMO project, developing new techniques for stope optimization, extending the earlier work on ‘Floating Stope' concepts. This research software is now being commercialized by the PRIMO software supplier sponsors - Datamine, Maptek and GijimaAST. Chris has also developed new approaches to decline optimization, sequencing and scheduling within a framework for underground mine optimization, that will be further enhanced and applied in a new AMIRA research collaboration.

Presentation: Modelling Geological Risk in Underground Stope Optimization - Case Studies with Conditional Simulation and Indicator Kriging.