Flotation '17: Day 1

After I opened the conference this morning, Prof. Roe-Hoan Yoon got the conference off to a good start with his keynote lecture.  Prof. Yoon is an IMPC Lifetime Achievement Award Winner and a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, USA. He is a world-renowned expert on modelling, and his keynote lecture Developing a Flotation Model from First Principles set the scene for the complex and highly specialised papers that followed.

It is great to see, among the sea of familiar faces, three truly inspirational people who are real MEI Conference regulars. Prof. Dee Bradshaw has been attending our conferences since her student days. She is not actively involved this week, as she is currently completing an intense course of chemotherapy after her recent breast cancer. Her positive attitude is truly inspirational and it was good to compare hair styles this morning- at least Dee's will grow back!

We have two octogenerians at the conference, the two Australian Graemes, both very well known in the flotation field and at the MEI flotation conferences. Graeme Heyes is semi-retired after a long and illustrious career with Australia's CSIRO. Now 83 years old, he has funded himself to attend this conference.

Graeme Jameson, of the University of Newcastle, Australia, is 81 years of age, and, like our keynote speaker Prof. Yoon, a recipient of the IMPC Lifetime Achievement Award. He is, of course, world renowned for his eponymous flotation cell, of which over 300 are now in operation in 25 countries and in his presentation this week he will be introducing a new froth flotation machine, known as the NovaCell. Two amazing gentlemen who are true inspirations to youngsters such as me.

Graeme Heyes and Graeme Jameson

Welcome guests at tonight's "Happy Hour" in the Vineyard Hotel gardens were Prof. John Ralston (posting of 27 May 2014) and his wife Ann. John was former Director of the University of South Australia's Ian Wark Research Institute, and he and Ann are now very serious globe trotters. John was recently a guest of the Central South University in Changsha, China, where he presented a series of lectures (posting of 26 October) and he has been very much involved in the development of the Namibia University of Science and Technology in Windhoek (posting of 23 May 2016). Prior to his visit to China, he and Ann were in Alberta, Canada. John commenced visiting the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Alberta in 2004 and has maintained a close relationship since then, having returned each year to deliver research seminars, plan  research strategies and counsel young faculty  and graduate students with regard to their research projects.

Ann and John Ralston (4th and 5th left) at the Happy Hour

Despite the relatively cool (18C) conditions, a well attended hour with some very happy people:

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