Plenary Speakers

John Curtin Distinguished Professor Kliti Grice is Director of WA-Organic and Isotope Geochemistry Centre in the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University. She is an internationally renowned organic geochemist and a 2021 ARC Laureate Fellow and provides important insights into the mass extinction events that have shaped life on Earth, and has developed the tools to allow further exploration of the Earth’s record of environmental change including species evolution/adaption to the role of microbes in exceptional fossil preservation. From the beginning of her research into compound specific isotope analysis, Professor Grice has progressively developed a platform from which others can expand their research horizons and is one of Australia’s leading scientists and a pioneering female in STEM. She is a fellow of Australian Academy of Science, an Honorary Fellow of the Geochemical Society and European Association of Geochemistry and a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute,

Simon Jowitt is currently a tenured Associate Professor of Economic Geology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. He has a BSc (Hons) degree in Geology from the University of Edinburgh, an MSc in Mining Geology from the Camborne School of Mines, and a PhD from the University of Leicester, all in the UK. Simon also spent eight years at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, initially as a three year postdoctoral research fellow working with Anglo American before moving to his current position at UNLV. His research focuses on the use of geochemistry to unravel geological processes in a variety of settings with direct application to understanding not only mineralizing systems but also igneous petrology, mineral exploration, global tectonics and the links between magmatism and metallogeny. He has also undertaken extensive research on mineral economics, global metal resources and the security of supply of the critical elements, and the “economic” side of economic geology, as demonstrated by a number of recent publications on global base, precious, and critical metal and mineral resources and the impact of COVID-19 on the global minerals industry. Simon also studies the environmental impact of mining and the potential uses of mining and other wastes for metal production and CO2 sequestration. He has published more than 95 scientific papers and peer-reviewed book chapters since 2010, is currently the Vice-President for Student Affairs for the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) and was awarded the SEG’s Waldemar Lindgren Award in 2014.

Ben is an Environmental/Process Engineer who has spent over 20 years developing improved measurement, simulation and control techniques for a range of air pollutants, particularly aerosols. Ben’s work on the filtration of nanoparticles has been cited by 3M and other leading respirator (mask) manufacturers and researchers as the most important contribution to the field. His work on diesel exhaust exposure in underground hard-rock mines has led to world leading exposure standards being implemented. More recently, Ben has been studying the properties and health effects of various geogenic (mainly iron ore) dusts, and developing novel technologies to control or suppress such dusts in process and broad environmental scale systems. Given that Ben only undertook one geology subject during undergraduate study, he never imagined he would be leading what is probably the largest ever study on the impacts of natural and anthropogenic environmental impacts on petroglyphs, nor presenting at a geoscience conference.

Andrew Roberts is a Professor in the Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University. He is a paleomagnetist with broad interests in applying paleomagnetism, rock magnetism, and environmental magnetism to studies of climate and environmental change, geomagnetic field behaviour, geochronology, and tectonics. He has authored and co-authored 300 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals and is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He has been awarded the Leverhulme Prize (UK), Axford Medal (Asia Oceania Geosciences Society), AGU Edward Bullard Lectureship, and Mawson Medal (Australian Academy of Science), and was appointed as an Excellent Researcher at the Geological Survey of Japan. He has served for 15 years in university senior management and on scientific advisory committees in the UK, USA, China, Taiwan, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand.

Roberta L. Rudnick is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth Science at UC Santa Barbara. She investigates the origin and evolution of the continents, combining petrology, geochemistry and geophysical data to interpret the nature of the lower continental crust, and whether and how continental crust composition has changed over Earth history. A first-generation college student, she received her B.S. at Portland State University, her M.S. at Sul Ross State University and her PhD at the Australian National University. After holding research positions in Germany and Australia, she returned to the U.S. and served on the faculty at Harvard University and the University of Maryland prior to moving to Santa Barbara. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the US National Academy of Sciences and is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.