Alison currently holds the position of Director, Rocscience Australia overseeing operations in Australia and New Zealand. She obtained her PhD at UNSW and is a Chartered Professional (in Geotech) and RPEQ. Her area of expertise is rock mechanics and open pit slope stability, previously working in both ops and corporate roles for Anglo American and Rio Tinto as well as providing specialists consulting services for copper, gold, iron ore, coal and diamond operations in Australia, PNG, SE Asia and Africa.

Dr. Rostami is the Hadden/Alacer Gold Endowed Chair and Director of the Excavation Engineering and Earth Mechanics Institute (EMI). He has a BSc in mining engineering from Univ. of Tehran, Iran and his MSc and PhD in mining engineering in 92 and 97 from CSM, respectively. He has been a faculty at Univ. of Tehran from 1988 through 2002, a full time consultant with major A&E companies from 2002 to 2007 (Brierley Asso, Jenny Engineering, CDM Smith, etc.) He joined the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), as Centennial Chair of Carrier Development in Mining in 2007 and moved back to CSM in 2016. He has over 27 years of experience in design, management, research, and teaching in the field of mining, tunneling, and underground construction. Dr. Rostami is a registered Professional Engineering (PE) in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. He is a member of SME, ASCE, ARMA, ISEE, IRSME, IRRMS, and TRB AFF-60 tunneling committee. He is currently one of the Editor in Chiefs of Tunneling and Underground Space Technology (published by Elsevier). Dr. Rostami is a member of the executive committee of the International Tunneling Association (ITA) and a member of the editorial board of Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering journal, and the representing UCA of SME in the Mining and Minerals Engineering journal of SME. He is the current chair of the Research Committee and past chair of the faculty/student grant selection of SME. He is the chair of the upcoming 4th international conference on TBM in Difficult Ground (TBM-DiG). He has offered short courses on tunneling, shaft construction, and related topics for SME and other organizations. He has published over 80 Peer reviewed publications and ~150 conference papers, and over 100 technical reports and proposals, and reviews technical papers on a regular basis. He is one of the founding members of Iranian American Academics & Professionals (IAAP), member of the board of directors of Child Foundation, also the founder and incorporator of Professors Without Borders (PWOB).

A professional mining engineer, expert advisor, technical-executive leader, experienced in multi-commodity operations, surface and underground (coal, copper, gold, iron-ore); leader of multidisciplinary functions: mine & technical, technology and technical-scientific R&D Centres; leader of global programs in mining innovation development and delivery; an SME in Mining Engineering, Mining Methods; Mine Design; Block Caving Mechanics; Rock Mechanics; Mining Geotechnical Engineering; Geosensing; R&D, Strategy and Delivery of Technology Innovation & Transformation.