IMPC Lifetime Achievement Awards to Profs. Jameson and Somasundaran

At last night's IMPC Banquet in Quebec City, the lifetime achievements of two of the industry's top scientists were recognised, with the recipients of the prestigious Lifetime Achievements Awards being Australia's Prof. Graeme Jameson and USA's Prof. Ponisseril Somasundaran.

Profs. Somasundaran and Jameson with Quebec IMPC Chairman Prof. Jim Finch

I have known Prof. Graeme Jameson for several years. He has presented research papers at all MEI’s Flotation conferences and was a keynote lecturer at Flotation ’09. He is a long-standing member of the Editorial Board of Minerals Engineering and is the recipient of many major awards, most recently the Australian Prime Minister’s Prize for Science (posting of 21 October 2015). I was pleased to nominate him for International Mining’s Hall of Fame, into which he was inaugurated in 2014. In 2013 he was awarded the SME’s prestigious Antoine Gaudin Award in Denver (posting of 3 March 2013). In 2005 he was recognised in the Australian Queen's Birthday honours list, being made Officer of the Order of Australia, "for service to engineering, science, industry and the environment as an inventor and through contributions in the fields of fluid and particle mechanics, mineral processing, water and wastewater treatment and particle technology.” In the same year he was made Laureate Professor of the University of Newcastle, Australia, recognising his many contributions to research and his international standing in the field. He was the first person to receive the award, which is reserved only for a small number of outstanding researchers. He remains the Director of the Centre for Multiphase Processes in the University. Other accolades include the CSIRO Medal and being recognised as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences.

Graeme with Prof. Roe-Hoan Yoon at Flotation '11

Professor Jameson's contribution to the Australian economy and the environment as the inventor of what is considered by many to be the nation's biggest export earner in the last 30 years, has earned him gold status within the minerals industry. With well over 300 Jameson Cells now in operation across 25 countries, the Cell is being used for copper, coal, zinc, nickel, lead, silver and platinum extraction world-wide. In the true mark of a scientist, 30 years on from his initial breakthrough discovery, Prof Jameson is still fine-tuning and improving the Jameson Cell. His research continues to push the boundaries and he is currently working on a Fluidised Bed Flotation Cell that has the potential to make massive reductions in the energy used in the minerals industry.

I catch up with Professor Somasundaran less frequently than with Graeme Jameson. We first met over 30 years ago, in Falmouth, where I invited him as a distinguished lecturer at the NATO Advanced Study Institute "Mineral Processing at a Crossroads" (posting of 12 September 2009), where he gave an overview of the ultrafines problem.

Professor Somasundaran received his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and his Bachelor of Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science in 1961. He was appointed the first La von Duddleson Krumb Professor in the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the first Director of the Langmuir Center for Colloids & Interfaces and founding director of the National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Center for Advanced Studies in Novel Surfactants. He was also elected Chairman of the Henry Krumb School at Columbia University, as Chair of Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Material Science & Mineral Engineering in 1992 and 1995.

He was inducted in l985 into the National Academy of Engineering, among the highest professional distinctions that can be conferred to an engineer and later to the Chinese, Indian and Russian National Academies. He is the recipient of the Antoine M. Gaudin Award (1982), the Robert H. Richards Award (l987), the Arthur F. Taggart Award for best paper (1987) of AIME, “Most Distinguished Achievement in Engineering” award from AINA among others. In addition, he was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 1990, along with such recipients as President George Bush, four former Presidents, U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Danny Thomas, the Leadership citation from the New Jersey Senate in 1991 and the Engineering Foundation’s 1992 Frank F. Aplan Award.

He is the honorary editor-in-chief of the international journal Colloids and Surfaces. His research interests are surface and colloid chemistry of minerals, materials and microbes, molecular interactions at surfaces using advanced spectroscopy, polymer and surfactant adsorption, flocculation/dispersion, biosurface phenomena, environmental engineering (waste treatment), enhanced recovery of oil and coal cleaning.

Profs. Jameson and Somasundaran are very worthy winners of the IMPC's Lifetime Achievement Award, and I offer sincere congraultations on behalf of MEI.

And let us not forget the 10 young people who were also recognised last night with the IMPC Young Author Awards. Hopefully we will hear much more of these young scientists in future years.

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