CRP News and Updates

July 2024

ANNOUNCING THE 2024 SME ACADEMIC GRANT AND PH.D. FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENTS

For a ninth year, the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME) will award grants and fellowships to tenure-track professors and Ph.D. students seeking the financial support needed to earn their Ph.D. to begin a career in academia or assist with securing tenure at their university.

These programs, funded through the SME Foundation, exist to address the long-term challenges that threaten the sustainability of U.S. mining academic degree granting programs, as well as the looming future labor deficiencies associated with retirements over the next two decades. This year’s recipients are Dr. Rudrajit Mitra of South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, Dr. Ehsan Vahidi of the University of Nevada, Reno and Daykin Schnell of the University of Kentucky.

“The SME Foundation remains committed to investing in the future of mining and minerals education, having funded 40 students and faculty with $7.7 million to date” said Thomas C. Rauch, SME Foundation President. “This year’s outstanding class of recipients, like those before them, are cultivating a robust talent pipeline to meet the many resource demands of tomorrow.”

The program allocates to each recipient:
• Freeport-McMoRan, Inc. Academic Career Development Grant - $100,000 per year for a maximum of three years. The grant provides assistant or associate professors financial support to fulfill requirements for achieving tenure and promotion.
• Ph.D. Fellowship - $60,000 per year for a maximum of four years. The fellowship provides financial support necessary to acquire a doctoral degree to students with industry experience and a desire to pursue an academic career.

About the recipients:
2024 Freeport-McMoRan, Inc. Career Development Grant

Rudrajit Mitra, Ph.D.
Dr. Mitra is currently an associate professor and Syd & Felicia Peng Professor in Mining Engineering at the Department of Mining Engineering & Management at South Dakota Mines. His area of expertise includes rock mechanics and mining systems engineering focusing on resource efficiency through use of digitalization, virtual reality applications in mining and innovation in learning and teaching. He has more than 130 research publications in book chapters, journals, peer-reviewed conferences and reports and has been involved in various projects for the mining industry across different countries. To date, he has graduated 12 Ph.D., 13 MS and 77 undergraduate honors students under his supervision.

Ehsan Vahidi, Ph.D.
Dr. Vahidi holds the John N. Butler Endowed Professorship at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). As an interdisciplinary researcher, he aims to bridge the gap between engineering and sustainability sciences by applying fundamental environmental engineering principles to practical solutions, particularly within the mining and metallurgical engineering sectors. Dr. Vahidi has contributed to numerous peer-reviewed journal articles focusing on producing, recovering, and recycling critical and strategic materials using methods such as chemical leaching, bioleaching, and solvent extraction. He currently collaborates with several mining companies across the U.S. to help them achieve their carbon reduction objectives.

2024 SME Ph.D. Fellowship

Daykin Schnell
Daykin Schnell is excited to pursue his Ph.D. in mining engineering at the University of Kentucky this fall. For the past four years, he served as the Explosives Engineering Manager at RESPEC, an engineering consulting company. He has worked in the mining and construction industries for nine years and has experience in mine planning and scheduling, blast optimization and improvement, blast vibration management, instrumentation, project management, operational support, and supervision. Daykin is looking forward to working on his degree, participating in mining engineering research, and educating the next generation of mining engineers. Ultimately, he wants to help build up mining engineering and other earth science programs across the country to fill industry needs.

May 2024

SME/SMEF has two more success stories from the PhD Fellowship Program:
Dr. Chris Roos and Dr. Aaron Young

Dr. Chris Roos has recently completed his Ph.D. with the completion of his dissertation titled Seeing, Thinking, Doing – A Multifaceted Model to Embrace Uncertainty in Mine Planning. Dr. Roos, one of the inaugural recipients of the PhD Fellowship in 2015, completed a unique program of study at the University of Montana and Montana Technological University under the Interdisciplinary Studies umbrella that included aspects of Mine Design and Optimization, Geostatistics, Applied Statistics and Data Analytics, and Technical Communication. 

Chris was a unique candidate for the first round of PhD Fellowships as he had already secured a full-time faculty position at Montana Tech and was pursuing his PhD to continue advancing his academic career and further leverage his industry experience in teaching the next generation of mining engineers. Throughout his time at Montana Tech, Dr. Roos has advised 11 graduate students and over 30 undergraduate students and taught many more. Most recently, Chris has led recruiting efforts for the mining engineering department that have nearly doubled undergraduate enrollment over the past three years.

Dr. Roos initially planned his interdisciplinary course of study to last a typical four years, but the challenges associated with working full-time, raising a growing family, and pursuing an education quickly made him realize that a proper work-life-study was needed. With the support of his advisors, graduate committee, and colleagues at Montana Tech, Dr. Roos spread his dissertation research out and balanced his focus between it, his teaching responsibilities, and other responsibilities such as the recruiting initiative and serving as the head of the mining engineering department for a year.

Dr. Aaron Young was the recipient of the 2018 Stantec/McIntosh SME PhD Fellowship Award. He received his PhD in Mining Engineering on May 2, 2024 from the University of Utah. His research focus was on the Digital Transformation of mining and involved creating a new approach to modeling mining assets and processes. As a result, he has developed disruptive skills in agile software development, project coordination, consulting for new/small mining companies, entrepreneurship, mineral reconciliation, analytics and business intelligence. Now that he has completed his PhD, he is looking forward to learning new languages and furthering his understanding of blockchain technology, space mining, backyard smelting and Minecraft. He spent most of last year at the University of Utah as a Postdoc Fellow teaching senior-level mining engineering courses.

For over a decade, Dr. Young has contributed hours of volunteer work towards the Mining in Society BSA merit badge, helped organize and volunteer for several scouting jamboree activities and served on the MEC Scouting sub-committee. An Eagle Scout, his time in Scouting has helped prepare him to assist with the creation and success of the U of U Mine Rescue Team during his time as a PhD student, and for the recent trip he took with some of his students to Oyo Tolgoi and Gorkhi-Terelj, Mongolia. He is forever grateful for the PhD Fellowship Award and the support that he received from SME during his studies. 

April 2024

Congratulations to Dr. Barton for Receiving tenure at University of Arizona!

Dr. Isabel Barton was awarded tenure in April 2024 and is an associate professor of Mining & Geological Engineering at the University of Arizona. Dr. Barton was a 2021 recipient of the SME Freeport-McMoRan Career Development Grant. Her main focus is geometallurgy, which she defines as “addressing all the ways the mineralogy of an ore deposit will make it hard to get the metal out of it.” She combines concepts and techniques from extractive metallurgy, mineralogy, mineral processing, and economic geology to research new ways to characterize ore deposits and improve metal extraction methods.

Isabel also enjoys working with geologists, spectroscopists, archaeologists, and other engineers on non-geometallurgical topics ranging from diversity in engineering to the history of mineral resource science. Recently, she ran the YouTube series How Minerals Made Civilization, exploring how the use of nonrenewable resources has shaped societies around the world.

January 2024

SME Foundation to Host Corporate Roundtable Partner Luncheon on February 26, 2024

The SME Foundation will host current Corporate Roundtable Partners for a luncheon and update on SME and SMEF at MINEXCHANGE 2024 in Phoenix. All existing Corporate Roundtable Partners are invited to attend, as well as some additional friends of the Foundation. Invitations to this event are being sent from Megan Martin at the end of January. If you would like to attend and did not receive an invitation, please email Megan Martin at martin@smenet.org.

December 2023

SME/SMEF has another success from the PhD Fellowship Program

Dr. Heather Lammers received her Ph.D. in Mining and Earth Systems Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines after receiving a PhD Fellowship from SME in 2017.  

Dr. Lammers is a geological and mining engineer with over 15 years of consulting experience in the mining industry. She has served as a lead engineer and strategist for mine closure and reclamation and tailings and mine waste management projects globally, and has directed design and construction projects on three continents in varying climate zones. During her time as a student at Mines, she served as the academic chair for graduate student government, the graduate representative to the faculty senate, and as a graduate teaching assistant in the mining department. Her dissertation focused on tailings dewatering and mine closure and her ongoing research is in the areas of in situ tailings dewatering and multi-criteria decision analyses for mine waste and water management. 

Heather accepted a faculty position at the Colorado School of Mines in January 2023 as a Teaching Assistant Professor in the mining engineering department, prior to obtaining her Ph.D. She is excited to continue growing in her role at Mines while expanding education and research capacities. Heather actively seeks opportunities that promote and facilitate student learning, professional development, and industry engagement experiences. 

SME/SMEF Career Development Grant Program Sees Another Successful Outcome

In the fall of 2023, Dr. Pedram Roghanchi successfully completed the Career Development Grant Program that he started with SME in 2021.

As a result, Dr. Roghanchi joined the Mining Engineering Department at the University of Kentucky as an associate professor. Dr. Roghanchi expertise includes mine health and safety, automation, and subsurface ventilation. Prior to UK, Dr. Roghanchi worked as an assistant professor of mineral engineering at New Mexico Tech.

He pursued his education at the University of Nevada, Reno and earned his PhD in Geo-Engineering with a focus on mine ventilation. His PhD research was to reduce occupational exposure to heat stress in underground mines.

Dr. Roghanchi joined New Mexico Tech as an assistant professor of mineral engineering in 2018. He worked on several health and safety research projects related to occupational exposure, mine ventilation, and automation. Dr. Roghanchi has served as a research advisor of several M.Sc. and Ph.D. students. He has published several peer-reviewed publications and supervised several graduate students in the field of mine health and safety. This laid a solid foundation for his career and equipped him with the necessary skills to excel in his chosen field.

October 2023

The SME Foundation has been successful for assistance we have been able to provide to future professors, students, young professionals and the community-at-large through both financial and content driven programs. Communication and interaction with SME members, local Sections and industry corporations have been encouraged and strengthened. This has all been possible thanks to the enormous amount of support and contributions received from our corporate and individual donors. 


The SME Foundation ended FY2023 with $1,252,351 in donations. This included $675,000 from Corporate Roundtable Partners, $32,928 from Corporate gifts, $192,265 from Individual Donors, $106,314 from Events, $81,838 from Dues Statement Donations and $131,577 from SME Sections/Divisions.

FY2023 Program accomplishments include:

  • Qingqing Huang achieved tenure at West Virginia University and was promoted to Associate Professor.
  • Amy McBrayer received her PhD from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.
  • Behzad Vaziri Hassas received his PhD in Energy and Mineral Engineering from Pennsylvania State University.
  • During the SMEF Annual Gala Dinner at the MINEXCHANGE 2023 SME Annual Conference & Expo, 23 students were recognized and received SMEF scholarships totaling $95,500.
  • The MEC K-12 Outreach pilot program was launched at two Denver Public Schools. Program goals include achieving a greater public understanding of mineral uses, to improve recognition of the importance of mining and to get K-12 students interested in careers in the mining and minerals industry. During the 2022/2023 school year, the pilot program completed 12 mining-related lesson presentations, a field trip to the Colorado School of Mines and offered educational resources to K-12 teachers.
  • The first annual PieLC competition, hosted by the Young Leaders Committee, was held in Denver, CO during MINEXCHANGE 2023 SME Annual Conference & Expo. This successful event raised more than $58,000 for various SME/SMEF programs.
  • The 2022 Miners Give Back Award was awarded to the SME Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin Sections in recognition for their collaboration with 4-H in Wisconsin in presenting an eight-module workshop (Mining is Essential to a Sustainable Future) to thirty middle school youth across the state of Wisconsin. This effort was the first attempt to integrate the geoscience perspective into 4-H programming. 


Thank you for all of your support. We look forward to the work we will be able to do together in FY2024.

 

August 2023

July 2023

Congratulations – SME’s new PhD Fellowship and Career Development Grant Successes

SME and the SME Foundation would like to congratulate the following PhD Fellowship and Career Development Grant Recipients for their successes.

These successful outcomes are a result of the SME PhD Fellowship and Career Development Grant Program designed to provide support to fund PhD students planning academic careers and university professors working toward attaining tenure. Since 2015, eight PhD Fellowship Awardees have received their doctorates and ten Career Development Grant recipients have achieved tenure.

Dr. Behzad Vaziri Hassas completed his PhD Fellowship Grant when he received his Ph.D. in Energy and Mineral Engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Hassas is a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University, Earth and Environmental Engineering Department. Behzad is involved with various ongoing research projects in Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials (S3M) research group, led by Dr. Nagaraj, and Dr. Farinato. 

Behzad has comprehensive experience and knowledge which spans a broad field of extractive metallurgy, surface chemistry, mineral processing, and separation science. He has proven expertise in flotation, surface chemistry, water chemistry, and hydrometallurgy. Behzad has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles in prestigious journals and has presented his research at several international conferences. He serves the community as an active reviewer for more than 10 high-ranked journals in the field.

Behzad was selected for the SME (Stantec/McIntosh) Ph.D. Fellowship in 2019, and was awarded the 2023 Rong Yu Wan Ph.D. Dissertation Award in Metallurgical Engineering, 2022 SME Ramani Thesis Award (SME Foundation), and 2023 MDPI Minerals Travel Award. His research posters have been awarded first place four times in 2018, 2020, and 2022 in graduate poster contests of SME ED and MPD. He was awarded the 2019 Outstanding Teaching Assistant and 2020 Graduate Merit Award of the Department of Energy and Minerals at Penn State. Behzad was also the recipient of the 2019 Robert E. Murray Innovation Award Scholarship. Moreover, “in recognition of refractory gold concentration and processing,” his research on the flotation of auriferous pyrite has been awarded the 2017 Republic Metals Richard Rubin Memorial Award by International Precious Metals Institute (IPMI). Behzad was also granted the 2015 Cooper-Hansen Fellowship by the Dean’s office in the College of Mines and Earth Science, University of Utah.

  

Qingqing Huang, Ph.D., P.E., was recently promoted to the rank of Associate Professor and awarded tenure in the Department of Mining Engineering at West Virginia University (WVU) in May 2023.

Dr. Huang's research lies in mineral processing, coal preparation, and extractive metallurgy for metal recovery from primary and secondary sources. She has led and collaborated on diversified research projects to recover rare earth elements (REEs) and other critical minerals (CMs) from different sources, including coarse coal refuse, acid mine drainage and its treatment byproducts, non-coal lithologies, and phosphate processing waste clay. Dr. Huang has served as a PI or Co-PI on various research grants, with her personal shares totaling 1.76 million. She has advised two Ph.D., eight M.S. students, and one postdoc researcher and published 23 peer-reviewed articles throughout her tenure process. 

Dr. Huang was selected and named a 2015-2016 & 2018-2019 distinguished Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME) Henry Krumb Lecturer. In addition, she is the recipient of the 2017 SME Rong Yu Wan Ph.D. Dissertation Award based on her doctoral dissertation research and the 2018 SME Mineral & Metallurgical Processing Division (MPD) Outstanding Young Engineer Award for her significant contribution to the mineral processing field. Dr. Huang is also a recipient of the 2020 WVU Statler College's Outstanding Researcher/Junior, the 2023 Inaugural Glen H. Hiner Dean's Leadership Fellow for Engagement and Outreach, and a four-time faculty award recipient in the Department of Mining Engineering at WVU for outstanding research and teaching. As she further advances her professional development, Dr. Huang wishes to continue contributing to quality research, innovative education, and service activities in mining and minerals engineering.

  

Dr. Amy McBrayer received her Ph.D. from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

Amy McBrayer is a mining professional with more than a decade of academic and industry experience. Prior to returning to academia, Amy held various engineering, operations, and logistics roles at large surface coal operations in the Powder River Basin. During her time at South Dakota Mines, she served as both a graduate teaching assistant and a coordinator for a continuing education program. Her dissertation focused on mine production scheduling optimization.

She is excited to begin the next phase of her mining career as a Teaching Assistant Professor at West Virginia University in August 2023.  Through this opportunity, Amy looks to assist in attracting and developing the next generation of mining engineers.  

February 2023

SME Releases 2022 Annual Report.
Read the 2022 SME Annual report, including a special section on the SME Foundation



 

January 2023

SME Foundation to Host Corporate Roundtable Partner Luncheon on February 27, 2023

The SME Foundation will host current Corporate Roundtable Partners for a luncheon and update on SME and SMEF at MINEXCHANGE 2023 in Denver. All existing Corporate Roundtable Partners are invited to attend, as well as some additional friends of the Foundation. Invitations to this event are being sent from Megan Martin at the end of January. If you would like to attend and did not receive an invitation, please email Megan Martin at martin@smenet.org.
  

October 2022

Review of FY2022

The Foundation has been successful in the amount of assistance we have been able to provide to future professors, students, young professionals and the community-at-large. Communication and interaction with SME members, local Sections and industry corporations have been encouraged and strengthened. Compared to 2021, FY2022 contributions and financial support for the SME Foundation have increased.

The SME Foundation ended FY2022 with $1,348,564 in donations. This included $625,000 from Corporate Roundtable Partners, $273,133 from Corporate gifts, $250,000 from SME, $224,633 from Individual Donors, $97.700 from Events, $53,134 from dues Statement Donations and $41,170 from SME Sections/Divisions.

FY2022 Program accomplishments include:

  • Jessica Wempen achieved tenure at the University of Utah.
  • Richard Bishop received his PhD at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
  • During the SMEF Annual Gala Dinner at the MINEXCHANGE 2022 SME Annual Conference & Expo, 17 students were recognized and received SMEF scholarships totaling $68,500.
  • During season six of Move Mining, Team “TerraMovers”, made up of team members from the United States and Peru, won the grand prize of $5,000 for their winning concept of an interactive video game called “Goaldigger.”
  • The 2022 Move Mining Next Gen competition season had 21 submissions from students in grades K-12 that all created three-minute videos answering the question, “Why are minerals and mining important to our lives?”
  • The SME Foundation newsletter reached more than 14,000 members on a quarterly basis
  • During the 2022 SMEF Board of Trustees meeting, the SMEF Trustees voted to adopt the updated SME Foundation Five-Year Strategic Plan. The SMEF strategic plan was updated to guide the SME Foundation forward over the next five years to fulfill the mission to attract and leverage resources for a sustainable mining industry through education and outreach.
  • The first Miners Give Back Award was awarded to the SME Pittsburgh Section in recognition for their leadership and contributions to Phase One of the Remediation of the Westmoreland Coal Co.'s Abandoned South No. 2 Mine Portal Area. The Section was recognized for their Phase 1 of the project which included an engineered remediation plan, including sealing the portal, making the site safe for the local community, adding historical information about the site. The Section is now working with the Borough for the next stage of the project. When the entire project is completed, it will provide an outlet to communicate the historical importance of mining in the Export, PA region and the portal site will be identified as an area of interest on a local bike trail. The SME Pittsburgh Section received $2,000 for this award which they generously donated back to the Miners Give Back program. The purpose of this award is to promote humanitarian and service-oriented projects by SME Sections in communities where the sections operate, and to facilitate networking between Sections, as well as improve networking between the Sections and SME. 

Thank you for all of your support. We look forward to the work we will be able to do together in FY2023.
  

August 2022

June 2022

June 1, 2022--- New Career Development Grant Success Story

Jessica Wempen, Ph.D., P.E., was awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor in the Department of Mining Engineering at the University of Utah in 2022. She is interested in research applying advanced remote sensing technologies, including satellite imaging and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle technology, for mine ground control, mineral exploration, and environmental monitoring. Her funded research has focused on monitoring deformation and seismicity in underground mines and applying hyperspectral remote sensing to identify new resources, including critical minerals. She has been awarded 1.7 million dollars in research funding and supported a diverse research team that has included six M.S. and two Ph.D. students.

Dr. Wempen values multi-disciplinary, collaborative research because of its potential to improve the safety and sustainability of resource extraction. She also values experiential learning and has implemented new technologies in teaching and research. She strives to develop students who understand fundamental concepts, confidently approach and solve problems, and clearly convey their ideas. Dr. Wempen hopes to continue to produce relevant, impactful research and educate technically competent students well prepared for mining careers.
  

 

April 2022

April 21, 2022--- SME Annual Report Available Online

The 2021 SME Annual Report is now available online! This year there is a special section dedicated to the SME Foundation listing the SME Foundation Board of Trustees, overviewing SMEF accomplishments and listing our 2021 donors. You can find the SME Foundation section starting on page 17.






March 2022

March 1, 2022--- SME Foundation Board of Trustees Adopt New 5-Year Strategic Plan

The SME Foundation adopted a new strategic plan to lead the Foundation over the next five years.

The new mission of the SME Foundation is to attract and leverage resources for a sustainable mining industry through education and outreach. The vision is to inspire the next generation to meet the needs of a mineral dependent future for a better world. This will be done by focusing on three goals:

Outreach

The SME Foundation is a leader in creating awareness among industry, media, and the public on the role minerals and mining play in maintaining and improving the quality of life.

Education

Robust mining programs exist across the country with talented, forward-thinking faculty and students with a variety of technologically advanced skills necessary to fill critical roles in the industry.

Fundraising

The SME Foundation continues to bring in corporate, foundation and individual support for its programs and services.