2023 MEI Young Person's Award to Paulina Vallejos

We are extremely pleased to announce that the winner of the 2023 MEI Young Person's Award is Paulina Vallejos of the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile. Paulina, who is 33 years old, was nominated by Juan Yianatos, Professor at Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Romke Kuyvenhoven, Member of the International Mineral Processing Council and Francisco Melo of Doña Inés de Collahuasi mining company, Chile, with support from Ahmad Hassanzadeh, of Maelgwyn Mineral Services, UK, a former MEI Award winner.

Paulina has had a brilliant career in the mineral processing area since graduating. She obtained a scholarship to study Chemical Engineering at the Federico Santa María Technical University and later obtained a scholarship to enter the graduate program because of her outstanding academic performance through her pre-graduate years. Additionally, she got a scholarship from the Chilean Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation to carry out her Master’s thesis, in which a novel methodology to estimate mineral liberation after grinding from ore deposits characteristics was developed. She graduated from the Master’s program as the Best Graduate. 

Paulina started working in mineral processing before finishing university, when she was invited to join Professor Yianatos’ team as a research assistant. Currently, she works as a researcher and project engineer, participating in numerous projects for the mining industry. Her work focuses on flotation circuit characterisation and optimisation, mineralogy studies, flotation scale-up, flotation modelling and simulation, process water characterisation in flotation and other process areas; all applied to industrial flotation circuits. Her outstanding work in mineral processing has led her to participate in several projects with many of the major mining companies in Chile and abroad, doing applied research focused on large flotation cells at industrial scale.

Between 2018 and 2022, she played an important role in a research project with the then Outotec (now Metso), leading the development of a new industrial flotation simulator for the HSC Chemistry software, using an extensive data base of experimental data from industrial flotation plants, and including novel models with respect to size-by-liberation, cells design and froth recovery per size fraction. 

In addition, Paulina is a researcher on a prestigious project, funded by the Government of Chile which has allowed her to develop research on scale-up factors for liberation-per-particle-size, applied to industrial circuits. In 2023, she worked on the application of a new research project, also funded by the Government of Chile, and will be one of the researchers on the project in the period 2024-2027, which was awarded in early 2024 with one of the highest scores in its category. The project  "Development of tools to integrate new flotation technologies in hybrid circuits, facing the challenges of the mining industry", has the main objective of the characterisation of new flotation equipment to facilitate their prompt incorporation into flotation plants. In order to do so, the project seeks to address the main challenges and contribute to the sustainable future of the mining industry. Along the same line of work, Paulina has started working on a research project with Metso (Finland) to characterise and model flotation equipment with new technologies to be incorporated in industrial plants.

Her outstanding work in mineral processing has allowed her to participate as an author and presenter in around 20 international conferences around the world, such as MEI Flotation Conferences (Flotation’17, ‘19, ’21 and ‘23), IMPC (South Africa, Russia, and Australia) and in the annual Procemin-Geomet in Chile. She is also co-author of 16 papers, published in prestigious international journals, in addition to more than 30 conferences papers. Paulina has been invited to chair technical sessions at different conferences, such as Procemin-Geomet 2019, Procemin-Geomet 2023, Flotation’23, and IMPC 2024.

Paulina with Profs. Juan Yianatos and Graeme Jameson at Flotation '23

In the period 2020-2023, Paulina worked as an expert advisor on a sustainability project with Doña Inés de Collahuasi mining company in Chile, the second largest copper mining operation in the world, focused on reducing freshwater intake through the use of seawater, including optimisation of the metallurgical performance for current and future minerals. Additionally, she worked as an expert advisor, studying the feasibility of installing new technologies for coarse particle flotation and analysing expansion plans for the same mining company. In 2017, she worked on an innovation project of this company to evaluate the installation of Jameson Cells to improve Mo recovery, which obtained successful results in practice after implementation.

Currently, Paulina is working on different projects of technical assistance for mining companies (BHP Billiton, Antofagasta Minerals, Anglo American, and others), characterising non-conventional flotation equipment to be incorporated into industrial plants, e.g., Jameson cells, SFR cells, Hydrofloat cells, and others.

The exceptional performance and expertise that Paulina has developed in recent years in research, conferences and industrial projects has led to her receiving numerous invitations and recognitions. In 2019, she was invited to join the technical committee of the international conference Procemin-Geomet, held every year in Santiago (Chile), a position that she holds to this day. In addition, she is a member of the review board of Minerals Engineering. Minerals and Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Review journals. She has also been invited as lecturer for more than 10 international training courses and technical workshops in mineral processing for the mining industry in Chile and abroad, including BHP Billiton, Metso, Glencore, Intermet Perú and the Institute of Mining Engineers of Chile. For all these activities, she has received very positive feedback from participants.

More recently, Paulina became part of the instructors’ board of Metcelerate, participating as a flotation instructor on the program in Spanish for Latin America, becoming the youngest instructor on the program. In 2023, she was selected as a member of the Academy Secondary School Research and Innovation, of the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation of Chile, to encourage and support children and adolescents to enter the field of research and innovation. 

In addition to the awards that Paulina has obtained as a student throughout the years, in 2021, she was the recipient of the IMPC Young Author Award that is given by the International Mineral Processing Council for her outstanding research presented at IMPC 2020, the only woman among six recipients. She was highly recognized for this award in Latin America, having several interviews for different journals and newspapers. She was also invited to participate in several events, such as the annual general meeting of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and the 71st annual Convention of the Institute of Mining Engineers of Chile. 

In 2023, Paulina was chosen as one of the "50 genius women" of the year, an award given by the organisation Genias and sponsored by several international companies. She was selected from among more than 1000 applicants and was one of the 8 women awarded in the STEM category. This award recognises women who are generating a positive impact on our society, encouraging others to follow. Paulina has been guiding thesis students for almost 10 students and has also given presentations at schools, encouraging the secondary school students to join the mining industry, with a strong focus on women specifically, who are still a minority in this field.

It is no exageration to say that Paulina is a very worthy winner of the MEI Award, which will be presented at Process Mineralogy '24, and we look forward to following her career progression. Only last month the first MEI Award recipient, Peter Amelunxen, won the SME's prestigious Antoine Gaudin Award. Who knows, Paulina might become the first ever female recipient of this award in a few years time? A woman has never won a major award from the International Mineral Processing Council, but the gender balance is changing. The last three winners of the MEI Award have all been outstanding young women.