From abstract to innovation award: Emily Jaques shares her story
In the world of academic and professional gatherings, few events hold the power to catalyse innovation and transform perspectives quite like a conference.
For example, AusIMM's Mill Operators Conference is renowned for its cutting-edge discussions and impactful presentations. It has become a pivotal platform for thought leaders to converge, share insights, and inspire change.
Among the esteemed ranks of abstract authors presenting at Mill Operators over the last fifteen years, we had the privilege to chat with Emily Jaques AAusIMM, whose award-winning contributions have sparked meaningful discussions across domains since her presentation "Commissioning of the Coarse Ore Flotation Circuit at Cadia Valley Operations – The Challenges and Successes" in 2021.
What was your initial motivation for submitting an abstract – could you provide some advice for those wanting to share their ideas at a professional conference?
My motivation for submitting an abstract was to share the proven success of the Hydrofloat technology at Cadia Valley to other operations. The Newcrest technical and execution teams put in considerable effort to prove the Hydrofloat technology was effective for sulphide flotation and to successfully solve the commissioning challenges. These learnings may help other operations looking to adopt and implement the same technology.
An unexpected advantage of presenting my accepted abstract was the opportunity it offered me to refine my technical writing skills and participate as a speaker in a professional forum.
My advice to those wanting to submit an abstract is to make sure you commit the appropriate time to write the paper. Particularly for site based and production roles, writing technical papers is not always a high priority, however it provides an opportunity to reflect and share information to a wide audience.
What tangible benefits or opportunities have you experienced after presenting your abstract at the conference?
My professional network expanded following interactions with vendors and other metallurgists and operators interested or curious about the technology.
In 2022, I won the National Woman in Resources Technological Innovation Award for my role in the commissioning of the Hydrofloat. Presenting at the conference not only garnered some good exposure, but much of the submission criteria was largely addressed using excerpts from my Mill Operators paper.
At the last Mill Operators conference, was there a presentation that really stood out to you and has since influenced your own way of thinking or inspired you to approach challenges differently?
The paper that particularly caught my attention was “The Endemic Issue of Ball Mill Overload in SABC Circuits” written by M S Powell, M Yahyaei, A N Mainza and L M Tavares.
Upon joining Newcrest's Red Chris Mine in July 2021, I stepped into a role that presented an avenue for enhancing and improving the grinding circuit. The metallurgy team at Red Chris had the opportunity to work with Professor Malcolm Powell to explore many of the concepts from this paper. Drawing from the learnings and successes from other sites, we successfully applied these at Red Chris.