/Expert Forum: Speakers

Expert Forum: Speakers

Session I Responsible Sourcing

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Lawrence Dechambenoit, Head of External Affairs at Rio Tinto Global

Lawrence Dechambenoit is Rio Tinto’s Global Head of External Affairs, where he manages the group’s global stakeholder engagement strategy. He previously led Rio Tinto’s external affairs, media and communications, and community relations efforts across Europe, Africa and the Middle East as Vice-President Corporate Relations EMEA. Prior to joining Rio Tinto, Lawrence was a Senior Director at the Albright Stonebridge Group and ran his own commercial diplomacy consultancy. Lawrence started his professional career at the United Nations. He worked at the United Nations headquarters in New York but also at the UN offices in Kenya, Botswana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the UN, Lawrence was in charge of peace-making efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lawrence holds a BA in Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London and an MA in International Political Economy from the University of Warwick, UK. He is also a recipient of the French Medal for National Defence with exceptional honours.

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Daniel Franks, Program Lead – Development Minerals Program at Sustainable Minerals Institute at The University of Queensland

Daniel is a Professor at the Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland. Previously he held the role of Chief Technical Advisor/Program Manager of the ACP-EU Development Minerals Program at the United Nations Development Program. Prior to joining UNDP, he was Deputy Director at the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at the University of Queensland. His interests lie across the sustainability of minerals and materials, with a particular interest in the role of minerals in development and the social and environmental change associated with mining and energy extraction.

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Julia Poliscanova, Senior Director, Vehicles and Emobility at Transport & Environment

Julia joined Transport & Environment in June 2015 and now leads its vehicles and electrification work across light and heavy-duty road transport. This includes policy and projects on car emissions and e-mobility, such as EU vehicle CO2 standards, sustainable batteries, and infrastructure for electric vehicles. Julia also represents Transport & Environment on the board of the Global Battery Alliance and is an unpaid advisor to the board of Vulcan Energy Resources. Julia previously worked as Senior EU Environment Expert for the Mayor of London and, as an advisor to an MEP, followed legislation on renewables, energy efficiency and sustainable transport. Hailing from Latvia, Julia studied European politics and French at Goldsmiths, University of London, and holds an MSc in energy from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, specialising in batteries and fuel cells.

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Masuma Farooki, Consulting Director at MineHutte (UK)

Masuma is a development economist working on sustainability issues across mineral supply chains, co-designing implementable ESG frameworks for mining companies, OEMs, investors and governments, to promote a sustainable commodity ecosystem. Her work involves analysis of global value chains, industrial, trade and mineral policies in Europe and Africa.

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Mark Fellows, Co-founder, Director - Commercial at Skarn Associates

Prior to co-founding Skarn, Mark led the metals and mining consulting business at SNL Financial. His career started in 1987 as an exploration geologist with Anglo American Corporation in Southern Africa. He went on to work for junior diamond and gold explorers in West and East Africa. He subsequently spent 13 years at Brook Hunt & Associates Ltd (now Wood Mackenzie), where he held the position of Director with primary responsibility for bespoke consulting work. From 2009 Mark was Managing Director of GFMS Mine Economics Limited, a business co-founded with GFMS Limited, which was sold to Thomson Reuters in 2011. Mark graduated from the University of Liverpool with a B.Sc. (Hons) in Geology.

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Chris Masurenko, Managing Director, Project Manager, Exploration & Mining Advisor at EC Terra

Chris is a EurGeol geologist with more than 20 years of managerial, technical, operational and project experience in a wide range of business, cultural and climatic environments and commodities. Chris has managed development programs, pre-feasibility & bankable feasibility studies, conceptual evaluations, scoping and acquisition studies and provided technical audits for project financing. Chris’s extensive feasibility study experience has included Putu Iron Ore Project in Liberia, Horizonte Minerals Ni Project in Brazil, KHA Ta Project in Mozambique and European Nickel in Turkey and the Philippines. He has led or been a key member of long-term technical development and co-operation programs at Ghana Manganese Company in Ghana, European Nickel in Albania/Serbia/Turkey/BiH, Araguaia Nickel Project in Brazil and with the ICMM in Kosovo. He has hands-on experience in the management, business development of a range of exploration, mining and consulting companies with offices in Germany, Australia, and Sri Lanka. Chris is a great visionary with regard to transparency, social development, and environmental protection, bringing new ideas of responsible mining to the mining world.

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Pamela Lesser, Researcher at the University of Lapland

Pamela Lesser is a researcher within the Arctic Governance Research Group at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, where she focuses on sustainable mining practices in the north, and in particular, the social license to operate (SLO) concept. She led the effort to develop European Union level SLO Guidelines and accompanying toolkit as part of the MIREU project (Mining and Metallurgy Regions EU) and is currently involved in two other Horizon projects that focus on extractives and sustainability - SUMEX (Sustainable Management of the Extractives Industry) and ArcticHubs. Pamela’s background is in land use and urban planning, as well as in environmental impact assessment. Prior to her work at the Arctic Centre, Lesser was a Fellow of Ecologic Institute – US, a Berlin-based think-tank, with projects related to smart cities and spatial planning. Lesser has extensive experience in the public sector, working for consultancies as well as with NGOs. As the National Policy Analyst at ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability USA, she served as a policy advisor to the Executive Director. Pamela Lesser was educated at Georgetown University, the University of California, Los Angeles (BA, Political Science, MA, Urban Planning), and conducted post-graduate studies in environmental policy at the RAND Corporation and environmental science and policy at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.

Session II Sustainable Materials for Future Mobility

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Luis A. Tercero Espinoza, Head of Business Unit Raw Materials at Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI

Luis Tercero leads the Business Unit Raw Materials at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI in Karlsruhe, Germany. Critical raw materials and changing demand through emerging technologies are important themes in his work. He has been actively involved in the process of identifying critical raw materials for the EU since its beginnings in 2009. He is a member of the Operational Group of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Entwicklungsfonds Seltene Metalle (ESM Foundation, Bern, Switzerland), dedicated to supporting research and development activities in the field of Rare and Critical Elements. Luis received his formal training in chemical engineering (BSc, MSc, Dr-Ing).

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Robert Pell, Founder and Director at Minviro Ltd.

Robert Pell PhD is the Founder and Director of Minviro, a spin-out company from the University of Exeter. Minviro supports mining companies in adopting life cycle assessment approaches to their projects, highlighting environmental impacts and opportunities for improvements during the development stages of projects. Robert completed his PhD at Camborne School of Mines (University of Exeter) as part of the NERC funded SoSRare project on the topic ‘responsible sourcing of rare earth elements’. During this project novel, life cycle assessment approaches were developed and applied to rare earth projects in the pre-feasibility stage of development. A unique method to apply life cycle assessment to mine planning was also developed, and these technologies have been further refined and applied in commercial settings. Prior to this, Robert worked as Assistant Editor at International Mining, a globally distributed magazine covering technical innovations and project case studies for the mining industry.

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Michael Rohde, Director Global Marketing Batteries at Orion Engineered Carbons

Michael Rohde holds a PhD in Chemistry and with over ten years of experience in batteries. His passion is for batteries and to make them more accessible and efficient for the future. During his PhD in Freiburg and PostDoc in the USA, he conducted industry-related research for BASF on novel conductive salts and additives for batteries in an international setting. 2015 he started his professional career at a large international technology group HERAEUS and since 2018 at no.1 speciality carbon black producer Orion Engineered Carbons. Within an agile environment that turns R&D into real-world innovation he is driving for business. With a strong background in battery technology (lead-acid, lithium-ion, lithium-sulfur, dry cells), he is involved in worldwide technical customer projects, product development, business development and marketing, turning cutting-edge conductive carbon additives into benefit for the customers. At Orion, he is commercially responsible for the global battery industry and heading the technical marketing and product management of battery materials.

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Dr Fabrice Stassin, Director Government Affairs Electromobility Projects, Director Government Affairs Northern Europe, France & Japan at Umicore

Fabrice holds a PhD in Chemistry & Materials Science as well as an MBA from the University of Liège in Belgium. After working in Strategy Consulting for a few years in Belgium, Netherlands and the USA, Fabrice joined Umicore in 2008 as Innovation Manager in clean energy and clean mobility technologies. Since 2012, he has been part of the Brussels-based team of Umicore Government Affairs focusing on Electromobility Projects, be it based on batteries or hydrogen technologies. Fabrice was instrumental in the development of EMIRI (the Brussels-based association promoting Advanced Materials), which he managed for five years until 2018. Over the past years, Fabrice concentrated his activities on promoting the key enabling role of batteries, hydrogen technologies and recycling to decarbonize energy, mobility and industry. At Umicore, Fabrice is also in charge of Japanese Affairs, focussing on recycling and clean mobility.

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Sevi Gaiffi, Dipl Ing, Gaiffi International GmbH and in USA SIGA-Tech Inc

1968 – 1978 Solid state Research Center BBC Switzerland Development team for SmCo sintered magnets, CeMMCo5, magnets, SmCo 2:17 Magnets. Patents. 1978 – 1984 Technology transfers from R&D to Production for SmCo magnets, (Switzerland and NJ, USA) LCD Displays (Hong Kong) , Electro Ceramic Varistors 1984 – 1987 Crucible Materials USA Implementation of first sintered NdFeB Plant 1987 – 1999 Rare Earth Magnet plant (SmCo, NdFeB and bonded NdFeB) at Magnetfabrik Schramberg 1992 – 1997 Crucible Materials USA, VP Chief Technical officer for Alnico, ferrites and RE magnets, assemblies 1997 – 2003 Magnequench International, SVP Chief technical officer, MQ1, MQ2, MQ3, in USA, Plant construction Tianjin China, etc. 2004 – 2014 Independent Industry consultant, mostly Magnet production related in USA, China, Germany 2011 – 2015 President at Gaiffi International GmbH. After he moved to Switzerland, Sevi established new company and continued business consulting in Europe and China

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Oliver Gutfleisch, Professor for Functional Materials at TU Darmstadt

Oliver Gutfleisch is a Full Professor (W3) for Functional Materials at TU Darmstadt and a scientific director at Fraunhofer IWKS Materials Recycling and Resource Strategies. He studied Material Science at TU Berlin, did his PhD in Birmingham, UK, and was a group leader at Leibniz Institute IFW Dresden. 2012 he joined TU Darmstadt. His scientific interests span from new permanent magnets for power applications to solid-state energy-efficient magnetic cooling, ferromagnetic shape memory alloys, magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical applications, and solid-state hydrogen storage materials with a particular emphasis on tailoring structural and chemical properties on the nanoscale. Materials are synthesized by advanced processing incl. non-equilibrium, field-assisted, severe plastic deformation and additive manufacturing methods. Resource efficiency on element, process and product levels, as well as recycling of rare earth containing materials are also in the focus of his work.

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Richard Moore, Senior Materials Engineer & Responsible for Permanent Magnets at Nidec PSA Emotors

Richard graduated from Bath University, the UK, in 1989 (Materials Science). He has 28 years experience within the Peugeot S.A. Groupe, working on European R&D projects; in charge of materials co-design and laboratory damage analysis for ICE and chassis developments; technical coordinator for component local integration in China, South America and Iran; R&D manufacturing manager for IC engine production (raw parts, machining, assembling). Since March 2019, Richard has been in charge of materials engineering and permanent magnets at Nidec-PSA e-motors.

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Daniele Pullini, R&D Integration Manager, Materials Engineering, Methods, and Tools at CRF, Stellantis

Daniele is a Physicist, PhD, Full Prof. Experimental Matter Physics (qual.), Associate Prof. Material science and technologies (qual.) – Senior Researcher in academic and industrial contexts. Today, Daniele manages the integration with product development of the Research program of the Materials Engineering, Methods, and Tools meta-function in the frame of the EMEA region. Besides being part of the steering committees of ETP on advanced materials and technologies, Daniele is involved in the creation of European and National Research programs for research and innovation. Daniele has a long-lived experience in collaborative research, having promoted and actively worked in a significant number of European and national projects of fundamental and applied science nature, technology, nanotechnologies, advance materials and processing, Marie Curie training initiatives, and RFCS projects of different scope and partnership size.

Session III Circular Societies

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Stine Skagestad, Head of Circular Economy at Eyde Cluster

Stine has 15 years of experience in the process industry, from Elkem, Alcoa and Eramet Norway. She has worked with energy efficiency, energy management and nine years as Technical Manager at Eramet Norway Kvinesdal. She is now Head of the Circular Economy in the Eyde Cluster. The most important work the last year has been the material side flow mapping of the process industry in Norway and the further work based on this is a key investment.

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Rachel Lombardi, Director of Business Development at International Synergies

Dr Rachel Lombardi is Director of Business Development for International Synergies Limited, representing the world’s leading enabler of industrial symbiosis worldwide. Rachel has been involved in sustainability and business issues for over 25 years, mainly from an industrial symbiosis perspective, with experience spanning academia and business. Her work has influenced practitioners and policymakers internationally through regional and international workshops, conferences and training organisation and facilitation. She holds degrees in mathematics and physics with honours, an MSc. in Electrical Engineering, and a PhD in molecular electronics.

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Olga Pozlevic, Policy Assistant at DG GROW

Olga has an academic background in environmental protection engineering and linguistics. She has been in the European Commission for 13 years in the following departments: Legal Service, Directorate-General for Environment and since 2021 in DG GROW unit ‘Green and circular economy’. In DG Environment, the area of work covered such fields as Research and Innovation funding programmes’ coordination, managing the European Green Leaf Award (sustainability award for smaller cities), and coordinating the Joint Research Centre’s work for DG Environment.

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Vincent Georgeaud, Technical and Scientific Expert at Veolia

Geologist and PhD physico-chemistry of materials Vincent Georgeaud currently holds a position of technical and scientific expert in Veolia's R&D centres. During his 21 years of research in this industrial group, he has developed skills and solutions in treatments of liquid and/or solid matrices ranging from common waste, various effluents to hazardous industrial waste. He has participated in several publications and six patents on the topics of treatment and/or materials recovery in waste. He has been a scientific manager of numerous research contracts in partnership with various universities on these themes. One of its missions for several years has been the development of specific physical and/or hydro-metallurgical processes for the separation and recycling of metals of interest (including strategic metals) present in certain waste treated by Veolia, such as WEEE (accumulators, PCB, PV…), surface treatment effluents, spent catalysts.

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Kriss Broos, Expert Sustainable Materials at VITO

Kris Broos graduated in 1999 as an environmental engineer and obtained a PhD in Applied and Biological Sciences in 2003 at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium). After five years of environmental research at the CSIRO Land and Water in Australia, Kris moved back to Belgium to work at VITO, the Flemish Institute for Technological Research. With a track record of more than 35 SCI papers and strong involvement in several large EU projects (H2020, EIT RawMaterials, Interreg), Kris has become an expert on Sustainable Materials Management. His field of expertise is the transformation of inorganic waste streams into new resources and products. In particular, the recycling of construction and demolition waste, metal slags, and industrial waste streams have been some of his focus areas. Currently, Kris explores a new strategic research line on the use of sensor-based technologies and machine learning for the inline characterisation of heterogeneous waste streams.

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Pierre Henry, Team Leader 'Sustainable Production and Products' at the European Commission, Directorate-General for Environment

Pierre Henry has a background as an engineer for the chemicals industry. He joined the European Commission in 1995 and has worked successively in project management in the financial instrument LIFE, in the annual budget procedure in DG Budget, then in the development and implementation of action plans on environmental technologies (ETAP), eco-innovation (Eco-AP), the Environmental Technology Verification scheme (ETV), circular economy (CEAP) and more recently eco-design and sustainable products.

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Irene Ruiz-Oria, Research & Development Manager at Atlantic Copper SLU

More than 20 years of experience in the copper metallurgy industry, graduated in Chemical Engineering and MSc Business Administration. Professional with expertise leading research and development, in-company and international projects to achieve corporate goals. Knowledge in Copper electrorefining; pyrometallurgy; metallurgical wastes treatment and recycling; circular economy; energy recovery recoveries and process engineering. The current position since 2010 at the Atlantic Copper (a World-class, highly competitive, and sustainable copper smelter and refinery in the port of Huelva, Spain) is as Research and Development Manager in the Innovation and Technology Division.

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Mariusz Walkowiak, Director of the Centre for Electrochemical Energy Storage at Łukasiewicz Research Network – Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals

Dr Mariusz Walkowiak is director of the Centre for Electrochemical Energy Storage at Lukasiewicz Research Network - Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals. His research interests cover primarily materials for Li-ion batteries, new lithium-based battery technologies and other energy storage systems for mobile and stationary applications. He co-authored over 40 scientific publications and has served as an expert for a number of national and international bodies, including, among others, the European Commission, UNECE, Batteries European Partnership Association, Polish Standardization Committee.

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Dominique Planchon, Programme Officer - Research/Infrastructures and Industrialisation of Construction/Process Industries and Circularity at DG RTD

Dominique Planchon has been working in the DG Research and Innovation of the European Commission for more than ten years on industrial technologies and sustainability. She has been working on Industrial symbiosis and green industrial transition over the last years, starting as an expert in power plant emission reductions, energy-efficient and sustainable construction, then transitioning to sustainable industry and circular economy. I am currently the linking officer with Processes 4 Planet Partnership for industrial symbiosis, urban industrial symbiosis and hubs for circularity. The new flagship initiative launched within Horizon EU to develop first-of-a-kind near commercial size demonstrations on circular economy transition, working closely with all stakeholders: national and regional authorities, business/industry actors, research organisations, financial bodies and civil society to ensure a systemic approach and win-win situations for all.

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