Committee

E. Peek (Edgar)

Education:
Both a MSc. (Hons.) and Ph.D in Raw Materials Technology, from the Department of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, Delft University of Technology, in The Netherlands.

Industrial Experience:
I joined Falconbridge Ltd. in September 1995.

• Falconbridge Technology Centre, Sudbury (~6 years)
• Development of various hydrometallurgical laterite flow sheets with particular emphasis on materials handling, slurry heat exchange and pilot plant design and operation.

• Projects & Engineering Group, Toronto (~2 years)
• Scoping study Koniambo project –operating costs estimate coordinator for both FeNi smelter and HPAL plant & site water balance management.

• Falconbridge Nikkelverk Refinery, Kristiansand, Norway (~4 years)
• Metallurgical plant support/troubleshooting in Ni, Co, Cu & PGM production, with focus on increasing throughput & impurity capacity.

• Xstrata Process Support (~4 year)
• Manager of the Extractive Metallurgy Team; focus on technology transfer and plant support on a commercial business platform in the field of pyro- and hydrometallurgy.

D. Filippou (Dimitrios)

Dimitrios Filippou obtained a Dipl.Eng. degree in Mining and Metallurgical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (Greece), and a Ph.D. degree in Metallurgical Engineering from McGill University (Canada).

He has extensive experience in zinc, iron, arsenic and titanium hydrometallurgy in sulphate and chloride media.

Since 2003, he works for Rio Tinto Iron and Titanium at the company’s Technology Centre in Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, where he currently holds the position of Metallurgist, TiO2 Products.

His fields of interest also include R&D project management, process scale-up and costing, and Life Cycle Analysis.

He has authored several papers and in 2010, he was awarded a TMS Best Paper Award for a publication in the JOM journal. He is also a licensed engineer.

L. Centomo (Liana)

Liana Centomo was born in Montreal and attended McGill University. She graduated with a bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering in 1990. Upon graduation, she joined the Noranda Technology Centre as a research scientist. She started in a research group developing titanium powders using a reactive plasma torch. She then worked in the chemical extractive group developing processes to treat nitrates from groundwater and a flowsheet to reduce metals to undetectable limits. She also worked closely with the Horne smelter understanding the stability of their residue ponds.

In 1996, she transferred to CEZinc as a process metallurgist in the Hydrometallurgical production department. She occupied the position of Superintendent of the Technical Department from 2000 to 2010. The areas of responsibilities include evaluation of feed material, development of flowsheets for all the plant to increase revenue and decrease costs, short term plant support, improvement projects using six sigma methodology, production planning and business development. She has been promoted to Director of Technology and Environment as of January of this year. Her added responsibilities include managing the environmental team and product distributions.

J. Budac (James)

James Budac received his PhD in chemistry from the University of Victoria where he designed and synthesized new novel fluorinated complexing agents for the production of volatile metal complexes of copper, nickel and cobalt. After spending two years as a visiting scientist in a Canadian government lab in Agassiz, British Columbia, Dr Budac took a position in the Technical Services department at Inco’s nickel electro winning refinery in Thompson Manitoba.

In February of 2000 Dr Budac moved to Alberta where he took a position with the Process Technology group in Sherritt’s Fort Saskatchewan nickel refinery where he eventually reached a position as manager of the process technology group.

During the years from 2000 to the present he has been involved with the Hydrometallurgy Section of MetSOc where he has held positions as secretary and chair. Dr Budac has also participated in the organization of the 2004 Pressure Hydrometallurgy Conference in Banff and the 2009 Ni/Co Conference in Sudbury.

J. Harlamovs (Juris)

Juris was born in Toronto, but was brought up and educated in England, obtaining a BSc in chemistry and going on to do a PhD in zinc solvent extraction at the University of Birmingham. His first job in 1980, was as a Research Metallurgist with Anglo American Research Laboratories in Johannesburg. In 1987 Juris joined Cominco Research as a Senior Research Metallurgist and has been Group Leader, Chemistry and Environment and Principal Hydrometallurgist. Juris has broad interests in hydrometallurgy. Currently Juris is Section Leader, Copper and Zinc at Applied Research and Technology with Teck Metals.

E. Lam (Ed)

Edmond K. Lam received his Bachelor of Science degree (1977) and Master of Science degree (1982) in metallurgical engineering from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, under the mentorship of the late professor W. Charles Cooper.

Upon graduation, he worked at the Falconbridge Metallurgical Laboratories in Thornhill, Ontario. In 1983, he began his career in the uranium industry by joining the Key Lake Mining Corporation (now Cameco) as a mill metallurgist.

He was involved in the startup of the Key Lake mill circuit and later was a member of the team that brought the mill to its nameplate capacity and beyond.

He was involved in the development and implementation of the SX molybdenum removal circuit at the Key Lake mill. In 1991, he joined the Cameco R&D laboratories in Saskatoon as a senior metallurgist. In 1992, he returned to the mill at the Cameco Rabbit Lake operation, when the mill successfully treated the Eagle Point ore and then the higher-grade D-zone and A-zone ores. In 1997, he moved to southern Ontario and continued to pursuit his interest in R&D by joining the Cameco technology development department (now innovation & technology development – research centre).

His area of work includes the evaluation of new deposits, the evaluation, troubleshooting and optimization of milling/refining processes, and water treatment processes. He is a long-time CIM member. He chaired the Uranium 2010 conference (the 40th Annual Hydrometallurgy Meeting).

M. Bellino(Marc)

Mark Bellino has 15 years of experience in metallurgical plant design and has worked in Canada, Australia, South Africa, Zambia and Russia for extensive durations. He specializes in the hydrometallurgy of nickel, copper, cobalt and uranium.

Mark has designed and implemented a variety of hydrometallurgical technologies such as leaching, residue separation, ion exchange and electrowinning. He has also participated in the design of crushers, mills, grinding units, flotation circuits, solvent extraction circuits and rotary kilns.

Currently, he is the Global Practice Leader of Uranium for Hatch Associates.

M.J. Collins (Mike)

Mike Collins earned a doctorate in Chemistry from McMaster University in 1984. Following completion of a visiting fellowship with the National Research Council in Ottawa, he joined the Research group of Sherritt Gordon Mines Limited, in Fort Saskatchewan, in 1985.

Mike became Research Manager at Sherritt in 1997 and held several management positions with Dynatec Corporation, Metallurgical Technologies Division, between 1997 and 2007.

Since the reacquisition of Dynatec by Sherritt International Corporation in 2007, Mike has managed the Research and Analytical groups (together called Process Development) within the Sherritt Technologies Division.

Work at Sherritt and Dynatec has primarily involved laboratory and pilot plant testing in the field of pressure hydrometallurgy. Mike has published seventy technical papers and is the holder of eight patents. He has chaired symposia, edited proceedings and presented at short courses for numerous MetSoc conferences and is the 2005 recipient of the Sherritt Hydrometallurgy Award.

Y. Choi (Yeonuk)

Yeonuk Choi earned a doctorate from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in 1989. Yeonuk has worked as a Section Chief at Korea Zinc, as Senior Metallurgist at the Noranda Technology Center and as Chief Metallurgist at Falconbridge.

Yeonuk is currently working for Barrick Gold as a Manager in Strategic Technology Solution. Yeonuk has experience in base metal extractive metallurgy including Zinc, Copper, Nickel and Cobalt and also in Gold extractive metallurgy.

G. Deschenes (Guy)

Dr. Guy Deschênes has 25 years of experience in R&D in hydrometallurgy of gold and 3 years experience as plant metallurgist.

He completed a bachelor degree in metallurgical engineering (B.Sc.), a master degree in electrometallurgy (M.Sc.) and a Ph.D. in hydrometallurgy of gold, all at Laval University.

He joined CANMET in 1985 where he holds the position of senior research scientist at the Mining and Mineral Sciences Laboratories.

He is the organiser of the professional course on gold processing; presented in conjunction with the World Gold Conference.

He is a member of the organizing committee of the World Gold Conference series. He is the authors of 75 publications and 118 companies and division reports.

He is a member of CIM, SME and Quebec Engineering Association.

M. Dry (Mike)

Education:
BSc (Chem Eng) University of Cape Town, South Africa
PhD (Eng) University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Professional Memberships:
CIMM

Current Position:
Owner of Arithmetek Inc., Specialist in process modelling.

Previous Affiliations:
Sasol, Mintek, Lakefield Research/SGS.

Experience:
Quarter century in applied research in hydrometallurgy, over fifteen years of process modelling experience covering base metals, uranium, gold, exotic metals, in sulphate and chloride environments.

G. Houlachi (Georges)

Georges Houlachi is senior research scientist at the Hydro-Québec Research Institute (LTE) in Shawinigan. He has previously worked at the Noranda Technology Centre in Montreal as Principal Scientist with expertise in hydro/electrometallurgy. During these years he has contributed in the development and implementation of several electrochemical processes for the copper and zinc refining.

He is now involved in projects relating to energy reduction for the electrometallurgy industry. He is the author of 33 papers and 14 patents. He co-edited the copper Cobra 2007 (EW&ER) and presented at short courses for MetSoc conference. He is the organizer of the Canadian ElectroMetallurgy Consortium and the Zinc Processors meetings. He is the 1999 recipient of the Sherritt Hydrometallurgy Award. He holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry from American University in Lebanon and followed graduate studies at the École Polytechnique in Montreal.