Lis Boczek is the Senior Manager – Tailings Stewardship at South32 and is responsible for oversight of tailings and dams at South32s global operations. She has over 25 years’ experience in all aspects of design, operation and closure of tailings and mine water dams and has previously fulfilled the Engineer of Record role for a number of tailings dams in Australia.

Arnkjell Loekke is a senior engineer and researcher at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI), currently based at NGIs offices in Perth. In his role he focuses on the topics of instrumentation and monitoring, analyses, risk assessment, and seismic considerations for dams, tailings storage facilities and offshore structures. He is on the board of the Norwegian Committee on Large Dams (NNCOLD) and represents Norway in ICOLDs committee B: Seismic Aspects of Dam Design. Before starting at NGI, Arnkjell completed a PhD at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and the University of California, Berkeley on the topic of earthquake analysis of concrete dams.

Theo Gerritsen is Principal Tailings Engineer for the Rio Tinto Copper Group. Theo is responsible for the Risk, Governance and Compliance of Copper Tailings portfolio globally. Theo is a geotechnical engineer with 25 years’ experience in mining, water resources and public infrastructure projects. Prior to joining Rio Tinto, Theo was EOR for a number of facilities in Queensland and NSW and during that time, has gained firsthand experience on the importance of practical implementation or Monitoring and Instrumentation and, more importantly, what can all go wrong.

Wade Ludlow is a Senior Principal with Red Earth Engineering and has over 20 years’ experience in all aspects of tailings and water dams, throughout Australia, South East Asia and Canada. Wade has worked on both Consultant and Client teams for tailings and dam projects and so has a good appreciation of the drivers and objectives on both sides of the table. Wade currently fulfills the Engineer of Record role for a number of tailings dams in Australia that are in various states of operation from annual wall raising to execution of the closure design.

Walter is the Hydrogeology and Mine Closure Discipline Leader for Stantec's Australian operation. He recently relocated to Brisbane from Stantec’s office in Denver, Colorado. With technical expertise in hydrogeology and over 30 years’ experience, Walter works with teams serving clients in the Australia-Pacific region and the Americas focusing on projects related to legacy tailings assessment and remediation, mine closure, and mine water issues. Walter’s experience includes evaluation of water-related impacts, monitoring programs, and closure options for tailings storage facilities in semi-arid, subtropical, temperate, and mountain environments. He recently led the design of an instrumentation program that is being installed at a closed tailings pile in the USA and has conducted audits of instrument and data-management systems for active TSFs in Queensland. Walter is a member of AusIMM and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists.