Who will be MEI's Young Person of 2015?

Do you know of a young person who has made an outstanding contribution to minerals engineering in 2015? If so, he or she might join the 4 previous winners of this award, Peter Amelunxen of Chile (2011), Randall Zahn of USA (2012), Rodrigo Carvalho of Brazil (2013) and Elizabeth Whiteman of Canada (2014).

Nominations for persons under 35 years of age at December 31st 2015, should be submitted by email to bwills@min-eng.com by 5th February 2016 and the name of the recipient will be announced at the end of that month. Nominations should include the name, age and affiliation of the nominee, and reasons for the nomination.

The recipient will receive an engraved award and a complimentary registration to any MEI Conference in 2016, where the presentation will be made.

Young people are the life-blood of our industry, and the Award is just one of the ways that MEI is committed to encouraging and supporting outstanding young people. We are therefore pleased to announce the appointment of Prof. Dee Bradshaw, of the University of Cape Town, as our "Living Gold" Ambassador. Dee coined the phrase Living Gold when her passion for nurturing and developing graduate students at the University of Queensland was recognised with an award from the university in 2013 for excellence in post graduate supervision. Her role will be to represent and work with MEI to develop innovative ways to boost research capacity and career development and to encourage and prepare young people for participation in MEI conferences.

Dee with young people at Flotation '11

Dee has been actively involved with MEI for many years, being one of our first consultants - for Flotation '07. She has especially sought to encourage people, young and old, who have not previously presented their research, to do so.  This passion for the concept of ‘Living Gold’ she applies to the development of talent in people.  Dee notes that just as the ores we work on all require different treatment, so each student has a unique combination of abilities, gifts and talents each requiring different resources to succeed and excel.