keynote speakers

Jacques Eksteen

The keynote lecture "Circular hydrometallurgy approaches towards more sustainable processing of critical minerals" will be given by Prof Jacques Eksteen, Curtin University, Australia.

Jacques is a Professor in the WA School of Mines, at Curtin University, and the Manager of the Critical Minerals Metals and Materials for the Energy Transition (C3MET) research group. He is also the Interim Research Director for the Critical Metals for Critical Industries CRC (CMCI CRC).

In addition, he was the Program Lead for Technology Readiness Level Progression in the Critical Minerals and Resources Technology Trailblazer, and held the roles Chief Scientist, Chief Operating Officer, and Research Director of the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (FBICRC) Ltd. He was Director of the Gold Technology Group and project manager of the AMIRA 420 project from 2012 to 2019.

Jacques holds a PhD in Extractive Metallurgical Engineering and has 32 years of experience in industry and academia. He has published over 200 journal papers and conference proceedings and is a listed inventor on 10 patent families.

Chun-Xia Zhao

The keynote lecture "Sustainable Biotechnology platform for Mineral Recovery" will be given by Prof Chun-Xia Zhao, School of Chemical Engineering, University of Adelaide, Australia.

Professor Chun-Xia Zhao is a Professor and an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Leadership Fellow in the School of Chemical Engineering at University of Adelaide (UoA), the Deputy Director of an Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence, and before she joined UoA, she was a group leader, ARC Future fellow, UQ Amplify Fellow at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland. 

She leads a research group focusing on bioinspired engineering across diverse fields ranging from biomedical innovations to resource recovery, including the development of biomimetic materials for cancer nanomedicine and drug delivery (small molecule drugs, proteins and RNAs), as well as biomimetic devices (e.g., tumour-on-a-chip, organ-on-a-chip platforms) for drug development. She has built extensive collaborations with scientists at top universities such as Harvard University, Brown University, etc.  and she serves as the Editors, Editorial Board member for several journals.

MEI Conferences

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