The proudest moment of my professional life

The International Mineral Processing Council (IMPC) "may from time to time make an award known as the "Distinguished Service Award" to persons who have over a sustained period made distinguished and  noteworthy contributions to the field of Mineral Processing and the activities of the Council and/or its Congresses". At last night's glittering IMPC Gala Dinner in Santiago, I was proud and delighted to become only the 3rd ever recipient of this award, which was presented in 2008 to Prof. Nat Arbiter (USA) and in 2010 to Prof. Jacques Astier (France).

Receiving the award from Prof. Eric Forssberg with Profs Yoon, Yianatos and O'Connor looking on

The citation for the Award read:

"Dr. Wills, an alumnus of Leeds University, has contributed to the mineral processing community in several capacities. His main quest during his long career has been to promote the distribution and dissemination of mineral processing engineering knowledge within the community of mineral processors worldwide. During his career Dr. Wills has served the mineral processing community and obtained results, which merits him for the Distinguished Service Award of IMPC.

After gaining industrial experience in Zambia and in UK, he devoted 22 years to teaching mineral processing students at Camborne School of Mines. From his needs as a lecturer grew a seminal and successful book “Mineral Processing Technology” in 1979. It has become a “household” book world over and is currently on its 7th edition. Its impacts on the discipline have been profound.

The next step in his quest for knowledge distribution was the foundation of Mineral Engineering journal in 1988. The journal has come to be known for its quality of papers and promptness of its editor. He continues to serve as its editor-in-chief.

Dr. Wills then created a very successful conference series in 1991. By concentrating on narrow fields of subjects aimed for specialists, but by creating a continuum from them, he has been able to create a model that has gained a widespread popularity. The number of topics has substantially grown during the years and now covers the discipline widely and very well. Famous are the series in comminution and in flotation that have been organised from the beginning. The conferences and the special issues published from the presented papers have proven to be a very exciting formula maximising the information and dissemination impact. The conferences have also proven to be very successful in networking people from young graduates to distinguished professors.

In 1999 Dr. Wills took his ideas of knowledge distribution to the internet by creating, along with his daughter Amanda, MEI Online, now a respected and well-known source of data and information. Within MEI Online Dr. Wills himself contributes actively in creating discussion topics and writing an interesting blog.

Dr. Wills’ achievements in disseminating mineral processing knowledge and information are extraordinary.  With his efforts many results and ideas have been disseminated efficiently."

There are literally thousands of people who have contributed to my receipt of this award, and I would like to take this opportunity of thanking them collectively.  Firstly I must thank the IMPC, and particularly those who nominated me, for honouring me in this way.

A special thanks to my family, the MEI team, particularly my wife Barbara, who has supported me in everything that I have done for half a century, and our daughter Amanda, and son Jon.

For half my professional life I was a member of staff at Camborne School of Mines (CSM) and I would like to thank all those that I worked with during those 22 years, particularly my mineral processing colleagues Roger Parker, Jim Turner and Vic Phillips, who are sadly no longer with us, and the Principal for most of my time at CSM, Dr. Peter Hackett, who gave me almost free-rein to make new contacts by travelling the world, often for extended periods as a visiting lecturer in Malaysia, Australia, South Africa, India and France.

For over half my professional life I have been associated with Minerals Engineering journal, and I thank all the Pergamon and Elsevier staff who I have worked with during that time, particularly my current Publishing Manager Dean Eastbury, who has become a great friend of the family. Thanks also to my Editorial Board Members, past and present, and the many hundreds of people who have given their time to reviewing papers for the journal.

Finally I would like to thank all of you in the mineral processing community. If I was not interested in you and the things that you do I would not have the motivation to do what I do.

It has been a long and rewarding journey, but I have not reached my destination yet

Lifetime Achievement Award to Prof. Roe-Hoan Yoon

The IMPC Lifetime Achievement Award (LAA) "recognises a lifetime of distinguished achievement and outstanding contribution to the advancement of the art, science and industrial practice of mineral processing together with participation in and contribution to the IMPC".

At last night's IMPC Gala Dinner in Santiago the LAA was awarded to Prof. Roe-Hoan Yoon, a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech. He earned his B.S. degree from Seoul National University (1967) and his M.S. (1971) and Ph.D. (1977) degrees from McGill University. He worked as a Research Scientist at the Canada Center for Minerals and Energy Technology (CANMET) from 1976 to1978 and joined the faculty of Virginia Tech in 1979. He currently serves as Director of the Center for Advanced Separation Technologies (CAST).

Prof. Yoon with Profs. Juan Yianatos and Cyril O 'Connor

Prof Yoon with previous recipients of the LAA, Prof. Janusz Laskowski (2008),
Prof. Doug Fuerstenau (1995), and Profs. Forssberg, O'Connor and Yianatos

Early in his career, his research focused on fine particle flotation, which led to the development of the Microcell flotation columns that are widely used in industry today, and also on the electrochemistry of sulfide mineral flotation.  During the last 25 years, Prof. Yoon has been focusing on the study of hydrophobic interactions, which have led to the development of new collectors, dewatering aids, a first-principle flotation model, and new separation processes. More recently, his research group developed a new instrument for visualizing bubble-particle interactions with a nanoscale resolution, which is useful for studying both the hydrodynamic and surface forces affecting flotation. His flotation model can be used to design a flotation circuit on the basis of information on mineral liberation, flotation cell hydrodynamics, and the reagents used. These research activities have resulted in over 330 technical publications, 13 book chapters, 1 book, more than 40 plenary and keynote papers at national and international meetings, and a number of Congressional testimonies. He has advised 40 Ph.D. students, 36 M.S. students, and around 40 post-doctoral fellows and visiting scholars. To date he has more than 70 U.S. and international patents to his credit, many of which have been commercialized through license agreements. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Gaudin (2003) and Richards (2007) awards.

Prof. Yoon is a very worthy winner of this award, and I extend hearty congratulations on behalf of MEI.

Tuesday evening in Santiago

The second day of the IMPC ended late afternoon with a General Body Meeting of the IMPC, where is was announced that the IMPC in 2018 will be held in Moscow. The next congress, in 2016, will be in Quebec City.

Then a complete change of scene, with an evening of culture at Castillo Hidalgo on Santa Lucia Hill, where we were entertained with a classical piano-opera concert, following a cocktail function.

 

Monday evening in Santiago

After a long day of technical presentations it was really good to relax over a few drinks at the evening IMPC 2014 Official Welcome Cocktail.

 

Sunday in Santiago

Delegates have been arriving from all over the globe today for the IMPC which starts tomorrow at the Sheraton Hotel and Convention Centre in Santiago, Chile.

Barbara and I arrived yesterday after a 32 hour journey from Falmouth, but after a good night's rest we walked into downtown Santiago this morning, then spent the afternoon relaxing and catching up with a few familiar faces by the hotel's excellent bar and pool.

The evening's International Reception was a welcome ice-breaker in preparation for the next four days.

 

Susan Woodward, a good friend of CSM

En route to Chile I have just received this email from Sheila Parker, wife of the late Roger Parker, Vice-Principal of the Camborne School of Mines (CSM).

"Past students of CSM will be sad to learn that Susan  Woodward died on the 5th. of October, 2014.  She used to rent half of her farmhouse to students each year - on the condition that they would help her to round up stray bullocks, and help with her famous " wine tasting and food" evenings which raised so much money for cancer research.

Many students came to love Susan and the farm, often returning in later years to stay in one of her holiday cottages with their families.

Her daughter, Sally, will be staying at Rayle Farm for a while to carry on the business."


Barbara and I got to know Susan only in the last few years, and together with many others we attended her funeral yesterday in Illogan. She was a lovely brave lady and we offer our condolences to her family.