12th European Electric Steelmaking Conference

Dr Edwin Basson

Director General, World Steel Association

After a few years in the banking industry, he joined the steel industry in 1994 as Chief Economist as Iscor Ltd. in South Africa. In 1996 he became Business Unit Manager for coated steel products and flat steel products. He later headed Strategic Initiatives at the company.

Edwin was transferred to Europe when Iscor become a part of Mittal Steel (now ArcelorMittal) in 2004 as a General Manager responsible for Marketing Strategy and was part of the Merger & Acquisition team in Mittal steel. From 2006 until he joined worldsteel, he was Vice President, Commercial Co-ordination, Marketing and Trade Policy at ArcelorMittal.

Edwin joined World Steel Association in August 2011 as Director General.

Edwin received his PhD in economics from Pretoria University. He taught economics at the same university from 1984 to 1990.

Kate Josephs

Chief Executive, Sheffield City Council

Kate Josephs joined Sheffield City Council as Chief Executive in January 2021, having spent 20 years in national-government in the UK and United States.  She joins Sheffield from a 6 month tour of duty as Director General in the Cabinet Office’s COVID 19 Taskforce.

Kate’s career as a senior leader in the UK civil service has included positions in HM Treasury; the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit; and from 2016-2020 in the Department for Education (DfE).  In DfE Kate held roles with responsibility for national strategy, operations and oversight across the Academies Programme; and from 2019 was responsible for the creation of a new centre of excellence for schools, academies and post 16 funding, with oversight of £63billion in annual funding.

Prior to joining the DfE, Kate spent 2.5 years in Washington D.C. working for the US Federal Government during the Obama Administration, including as Executive Director of the White House Performance Improvement Council, working across US Government Agencies – on priorities from veterans’ affairs to STEM education – with a mission to advance and expand the practice of performance analytics and improvement.

Kate grew up in Doncaster and lives in Sheffield with her husband and two children.

Professor Dr Mark Shujun Ma

Vice Chairman, China Association Of Small & Medium Enterprises

As vice-Chairman of China Association Of Small & Medium Enterprises, Prof Dr Mark Ma is a well-known Metallurgist. He has been in Metallurgical industry for 30 years, having participated a lot of Steel-making projects in BF, EAF, Continuous Casting, providing services including designing, transformation, installation, commissioning,  production, operation and maintenance in the metallurgical industry, with in-depth understanding of the steel-making industry, especially EAF steelmaking and Ladle Refining, home and abroad. Dr Mark Ma has been working for 30 years in the carbon industry, knows very deeply about all the carbon and graphite electrodes plants in China. Dr Mark Ma is widely respected and regarded as the “Guru" both in Graphite Electrodes and Refractory industry in China.

Alan Scholes

Chief Technology Officer , Materials Processing Institute

Andreas Rohrhofer

Product Manager, Primetals Technologies Austria GmbH

Andreas Rohrhofer originally completed his education as automation engineer. He started his career as product owner and product developer for industrial robots. For the last more than 8 years, Andreas was responsible for product development, project management and innovation management for electrics and automation for ironmaking, steelmaking and casting at Primetals Technologies. He has also commissioned several automation solutions at steel plants all over the world. Andreas is passionate about the development and application of innovative solutions for steel industry, which focus on the needs of today and tomorrow.

Anne-Claire Howard

Chief Executive Officer, ResponsibleSteel

Anne-Claire Howard was appointed as ResponsibleSteel’s first CEO in March 2021 joining from her previous role as Executive Director of Bettercoal. She leads the steel industry’s first global multi-stakeholder standard and certification initiative aimed at maximising steel’s contribution to a sustainable society.

She has over 15 years’ experience in raw materials (mining, oil and gas) sustainability, good governance and responsible supply chains having held positions with Royal Dutch Shell, Eurasia Group and the International Finance Corporation, Adam Smith International & Doctors Without Borders. Throughout her career, Anne-Claire has focused on the commercially sustainable development of oil, gas & mining projects and extractive sector governance.  She has successfully delivered projects touching on sustainable supply chain, local economic development, political, social and environmental risk assessment, governance capacity building and non-technical risk management in developing countries. She has been involved in oil, gas and mining projects and businesses in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas. Anne-Claire is a graduate of Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies and Science Po Paris. She is a member of the first cohort of the Franco-British Young  Leaders  Network. She also sits on the Board of Levin Sources.

Chris McDonald

Chief Executive Officer, Materials Processing Institute

Chris McDonald is the Chief Executive Officer of the Materials Processing Institute.  The Institute is a not-for-profit, industrial research institute, which has develops new technologies, primarily for the steel and metals sector in the areas of advanced materials, digital technologies, industrial decarbonisation and the circular economy.  Chris led the divestment of the 75yr old Institute in 2014 from its then parent company, returning the organisation to independent ownership.

Chris’s background is in industrial research and manufacturing, where he has worked internationally.  A graduate of Cambridge University, Chris is a Fellow the Institute of Chemical Engineers and of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. He is Chair of the UK Metals Council, a member of the North East Council of the CBI and policy chair for Innovation & Enterprise at the Federation of Small Businesses.

Chris is often called on to commentate in the media and speak on topics such as industrial strategy, digital technologies, steel and decarbonisation.  He provides expert opinion and support to companies, government and non-governmental organisations in these areas, to support policy development, growth and inward investment.  He has a strong interest in the wider social impact of business, including issues such as employee participation, community involvement and environmental sustainability, all of which are covered on his Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/c/chrismcdonald

: www.mpiuk.com
: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-mcdonald-7292676
: @MrChrisMcDonald

Clare Broadbent

Head of Sustainability, World Steel Association (worldsteel)

As Head of Sustainability for worldsteel, Clare leads the sustainability programme for the global steel industry, understanding the complexities affecting the industry on a regional and global level and representing the industry in external and international fora. The sustainability programme focuses on the production of steel, its supply chain and the use of steel in different market sectors such as the construction, automotive and packaging sectors. A key driver for her work currently relates to projects aiming to build demand for net zero steel and the role that steel can play in helping society reach net zero emissions.

Clare Broadbent has worked in the steel industry for more than 20 years, gaining extensive experience in the sustainability challenges of the industry and as such is a recognized expert in this field.

Clare started her career with British Steel (Corus / Tata Steel) after having obtained a first-class honours degree in Environmental Engineering. She moved to the European Steel Association, EUROFER, for a 2-year project on Integrated Product Policy and then on to the World Steel Association (formerly IISI) in 2007 to lead the global industry’s LCA programme.

Adnan Husakovic

Primetals Technologies Austria GmbH

Adnan Husakovic was born in Doboj, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1991. He received the Bachelor degree in Mechatronics from the Johannes Kepler University in 2015, spezialized in combustion engine control and drivetrain engineering. From 2015 to 2017 he studied in the Dipl.-Ing. Mechatronics programme at the Johannes Kepler university, specializing in the domain of automotive control and systems optimization. His master thesis dealt with identification methods based on modal testing in hydraulic applications. Since 2011 he is working for Primetals Technologies in the field of Data Science and in September 2017 he established a cooperation with the institute of signal processing (ISP) at Johannes Kepler University, where he is working on his PhD in cooperation with LCM Linz and Primetals Technologies GmbH. His research activities are focussed on acoustic condition monitoring and machine learning in the domain of steel-and ironmaking.

Dr Bernd Kleimt

Head of the Department, VDEh-Betriebsforschungsinstitut (BFI)

Dr. Bernd Kleimt, born 18.07.1963 in Solingen, studied Electrical Engineering at Wuppertal University. He received the Diploma degree in 1988 and the Dr.-Ing. degree in 1994 at the Institute for Automation Technology, Wuppertal University.

From 1988 – 1989 he was researcher at the Institute for Measurement Technology, Wuppertal University. In 1989 he joined VDEh-Betriebsforschungsinstitut (BFI), Duesseldorf, Germany, first as a researcher, and since 2001 as Head of the Department “Measurement and Automation Steelmaking”.

Since 2008 he is member of the TGS2 / TGA1 Group “Steelmaking” of the European Research Fund for Coal and Steel.

Main working areas are:

Dr Erik Sandberg

Research Engineer, Swerim AB

Erik Sandberg is a Research Engineer witin Metallurgy department at the Swedish metals research institute Swerim AB (formerly MEFOS and Swerea Mefos), where he has worked over 20 years. Swerim conducts needs-based industrial research and development concerning metals and their route from raw material to finished product. Our vision is a fossil-free and circular industry.

Erik gained a MSc degree in Chemical Engineering from Luleå Technical University and a PhD from University of Manchester on the subject of process condition monitoring in steel industry. During his time at Swerim, he has been working with process development, optimisation, modelling and data analysis of many different metallurgical processes, but mostly with the EAF. Erik has been involved in many research projects, both eruopean, national and contract research, focusing on estimation of raw-material properties and optimization of raw-material mix calculations.

He has also been working with material and energy efficiency on plant-wide or inter-plant perspective using system analysis techniques and mathematical modelling. In his work, Erik often uses multivariate statistical methods for analysis of process data and creation of statistical process models and soft-sensors. Many of the projects he is involved in also include physical experiments in pilot scale (at the Swerim metallurgal pilot plant) and full-scale industrial trials.

: https://www.swerim.se/en

Dr Marc Koester

Project Leader, VDEh-Betriebsforschungsinstitut (BFI)

Dr. Marc Köster is a physicist with a Diploma degree from University of Duisburg-Essen. At the same university he worked in an astrophysics research group and received his PhD degree in 2018 for a study on thermal creep in granular matter. Since 2019 he is a project leader in the department “Measurement and Automation Steelmaking” of the German research institute VDEh-Betriebsforschungsinstitut and is working on European research projects with focus on novel and innovative measurement technologies for the steel industry.

Dr Johan Björkvall

Manager, Process Development Group, Swerim AB

The driving force for my research is curiosity and helping the industry develop new processes and solve problems in daily operations. During the last 20 years, I have been working at MEFOS, Swerea MEFOS and now Swerim. At Swerim, as a metals research institute, we conduct needs-based industrial research and development concerning metals and their route from raw material to finished product. The vision is a fossil-free and circular industry. Even if the company changes its name, I'm still working with Process metallurgy and process development. That fact makes me a privileged researcher as these topics are my main interest. My academic background is a PhD in theoretical metallurgy from KTH in Stockholm. The focus of my thesis was modelling the thermodynamic in liquid slags. Since starting to work at Swerim, I worked on many different steelmaking processes, including blast furnace, EAF, secondary steelmaking and casting. Among these processes, the EAF and secondary steelmaking have been the focal point during the last years. My work within the EAF includes:

Presently I'm working as the manager of the Process Development Group and research leader for process metallurgy at Swerim.

Dr Lucy Smith

Principal Researcher, Circular Economy , Materials Processing Institute

No bio provided

Dr Martin Schlautmann

Deputy Head of Department, BFI

Dr Sara Hornby

Global Strategic Solutions Inc

Sara received her BSc (Hons) and British Steel Corporation (BSC)-sponsored PhD at Sheffield City Polytechnic (Hallam University), holds five patents and has published or presented 120 papers, seminars, and courses internationally.

Her career includes research & development (R&D), applied R&D, new technology development, marketing, and knowledge exchange through networking with academia, colleagues, OEMs, and especially, students, and metallurgical plant operators.

Her UK experience includes co-ops with Joseph Lucas, Solihull and William Lee Malleable, Dronfield and career positions with Applied Research Laboratories, Firth Brown Tools, and BSC.

In N. america, she has predominantly offered operating practice innovations and process optimization solutions to steel mills from Air Liquide, Goodfellow Technologies, Midrex Technologies Inc., Linde Gases, Process Technology International (now INTECO PTI), TMS International, and her own consulting company, Global Strategic Solutions, Inc.

A 50-year member of the IoM3, Sara participated in the Younger Metallurgists Committee and the “Materials for Man” lecture series, served as Secretary of the Sheffield Division of IoM, and recently received FIMMM status. A 39-year member of Association of Iron and Steel Technology (AIST) and its predecessor, Iron and steel Society (ISS), Sara served on the ISS Board of Directors (BOD), the University/Industry Relations, Ironmaking, EAF Steelmaking, and DRI Committees and Chaired the Process Technology Division and the BOD International Affairs Committee. She was also a member of the Investment Casting Institute (ICI) BOD and Chaired their R&D and Marketing Committees.

Her steel industry involvement and contributions were acknowledged in 2020 through awards – The American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) Benjamin F. Fairless Award by the AIST and the John Bell Award from the AIST Electric Furnace Committee.

Challenged to pursue a metallurgy career, Sara prides herself in being a trail blazer for women in the iron and steel industry.

Dr Sarah Macnaughton

Head of Steel Technology and Sustainability Consulting, CRU

Sarah specialises in industry decarbonization analysis, carbon accounting and operational benchmarking. She leads a wide variety of research projects exploring the impacts of climate change policies on steel and wider industrial markets and firms, including a recent impact analysis of the EU Green deal and carbon border tariffs. Prior to starting her career at CRU, Sarah worked at major international pharmaceutical and agribusiness companies. Sarah holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Oxford and a Masters in Chemistry with Economics from the University of St Andrews, having undertaken a course in Blast Furnace Iron making at McMaster University, Canada.

Dr Zushu Li

Reader in Sustainable Steel Manufacturing, Advanced Steel Research Centre (ASRC)

Dr Zushu Li is a Reader in Sustainable Steel Manufacturing at the Advanced Steel Research Centre (ASRC), WMG of the University of Warwick. Dr Li was previously Principal Scientist Steelmaking in Tata Steel R&D (based in the UK) and has worked in Tata Steel for over nine years. In April 2016, he joined WMG under the EPSRC Manufacturing Fellowship focusing on alternative ironmaking for decarbonising the steel industry. At WMG, he has initiated and leads several steel scrap utilisation projects funded by EPSRC, DEFRA and industry. He is the Co-I in the SUSTAINA Manufacturing Hub and the UKRI Interdisciplinary CE Centre CircularMetal. Dr Li previously worked in Chongqing University (China), Kyushu Institute of Technology (Japan) and Imperial College London (UK). He received his PhD degree in Metallurgy from Chongqing University (China).

Edward Heath-Whyte BSc(Hons) CEnv MIEMA MIET MIMMM

Head of Environment and Sustainability, Liberty Steel UK

An experienced, hardworking and dynamic senior energy and environmental / operations manager and engineer with over 38 years of experience gained in UK manufacturing industry. Starting in 1983 as an Apprentice Technician in Process Planning at the Austin Rover Car Plant in Cowley, Oxford. July 2021 marks 31 years in the Steel Industry based in South Yorkshire employed in Production and Engineering Management and since 2009 in Environment, Energy and Sustainability Management.

Employed by Liberty Steel UK as the senior environmental, energy and sustainability professional, leading a small team of specialists providing a service to for all steel making, rolling, finishing and stockholding sites in the UK. Leading on Carbon Neutral 30 delivery in the UK Steel business.

Chairman and Company Secretary at The Steel Valley Project Ltd a community interest company, overseeing strategic direction, funding and management of the project to provide sustainable employment and volunteering opportunities in landscape management.

• Member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (MIET).
• Member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (MIEMA).
• Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (MIMMM)
• Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv)

Committee Memberships

• SES/001/02 Environmental Management - Environmental performance evaluation, environmental auditing, reporting, environmental labelling and related environmental investigations.
• ISO/TC 207/SC 2/WG 7 "Revision of ISO 14015"
• Worldsteel - ECO Committee
• EUROFER – Climate Change, Chemicals WG, Greensteel WG, Environment, EAF Benchmarking.
• UK Steel - Environment and Climate Change Committees.

Technical Working Groups

• EUROFER - Iron and Steel BREF STWG (completed)
• EUROFER - Ferrous metal processing STWG 2009>
• EIPPCB - Iron and Steel BREF TWG (completed)
• EIPPCB - Ferrous metal processing BREF TWG 2009>
• Net Zero Steel Pathway Methodology Project - Steering Group Member and Technical Working Group Lead on Policy and Legislation.

Enrico Plazzogna

Executive Vice President Sales, Danieli Automation S.p.A., Italy

Born in Udine, Italy in 1967 and there living, he graduated in Electronic Engineering, with specialization in Industrial Controls at Padova University, winning a Scholarship from Consorzio Padova Ricerche for the Graduation Thesis on controls of robotic arms.

He joined DANIELI as Proposal Engineer in 1994. He was then Area Manager for Europe, later for Middle East and for East Europe and Russia.

From 2007 he covered the role of Executive Manager Sales for Minimills and Turnkey plants and in 2011 he became vice President Sales.

Since 2014 he’s Executive Vice President Sales, from 2019 in the Board of DANIELI DIGI&MET, the Product Line of DANIELI Group focused on digital transformation, and Member of the Board of DANIELI AUTOMATION.

He has been the speaker for DANIELI in internal events, such as Danieli Innovation Meetings, Balance Sheet presentations and in many international fairs and conferences.

Hannes Beile

Senior Process and Consultant Expert, tripleS GbR

Education:

Master of Science (Energy, Process and Environmental Management)

Present Job Title:

Senior Process and Consultant Expert

Current Company and Plant Location:

tripleS GbR

Schwarzwaldstrasse 3

77770 Durbach / Germany

Previous Job Titles:

Senior Key Expert Electric Steelmaking at Primetals

Product Lifecycle Owner EAF  Siemens VAI

Product Manager EAF at Siemens VAI

Commissioning engineer EAF + LF + Vacuum

Professional Achievements:

> 20 commissioning’s of EAF or total plant setups

Author of various technical papers

Holder of various patents in Electric Steelmaking

Execution of technical and consulting studies

Hans Georg Conrads

Managing Director, PROMECON GmbH

Dipl.-Ing. Hans Georg Conrads studied electrical engineering on the RWTH Aachen. After his Master degree he founded the company PROMECON GmbH and invented numerous measurement systems for the power, cement and smelter industries.  Today these measurement systems are installed in hundreds of plants around the world. Hans Georg Conrads is the author of numerous patents and many conference papers on process measurement of gas and solid material flows. He is the Managing Director of the company PROMECON GmbH in Barleben, Germany.

Jaroslav Brhel

Owner, HTT Engineering spol. s.r.o

1992 - Graduated from BRNO TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY, studied metallurgy of steel, science of materials and foundry technology

1992 – 1996 – metallurgist in ZDAS a.s. (Czech Rep.)

1996 – 2007 – technology manager – metals applications at AIR PRODUCTS

2008 – 2014 – director of PTI EUROPE

2015 – till now – owner of HTT Engineering

Focus on technological applications for metallurgy

Jesus Hernandez

Research Associate, TU Dortmund Technical University

Jesus holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering and a master’s degree in Energy Engineering. He has held various positions as Process control and optimization engineer in the oil and gas and the metal processing industries. He joined the Process Dynamics and Operation group (DYN) of TU Dortmund Technical University in Germany as a Research Associate in 2020. Since 2017, he has cooperated with the DYN group and with ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni in Italy as a member of the EU funded H2020 PRONTO project. His research interests include process modelling, advanced process control, continuous improvement strategies and optimization of steelmaking processes.

Joachim von Schéele

Director Global Commercialization, Linde plc

Joachim von Schéele received his MSc in Process Metallurgy and PhD in Production Engineering from Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden in 1987 and 1992, respectively.

With a mix of steel research and consultancy background, Joachim von Schéele joined the industrial gases industry in 1996. Since then, he has served in many different technical and commercial management roles at AGA, BOC and Linde, and been actively doing business in more than 40 countries around the world. The last nine years he was based in Asia, first in India as VP for South Asia and then in China heading Application Sales for Asia-Pacific. He is very much engaged in driving the sustainability agenda – with focus on decarbonization – and involving and co-operating with Linde’s customers on this topic to achieve joint progress and success.

Joachim von Schéele is a well-known speaker and has published more than 200 papers on energy and emission conservation, recycling, and production. He has served as a member of more than 30 boards of companies, associations, and research and education organizations, and as session chairman at many conferences. He is included in Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in Engineering, and Who’s Who in Asia. Joachim von Schéele holds six patents related to combustion and recycling, and is based in Munich, Germany.

Joon Sung Choi

Ph.D researcher, Yonsei KIURI Institute

Ph.D researcher (2020.9 ~ ) : Yonsei KIURI Institute, Department of Material Science and Engineering, Yonsei University, Republic of Korea

Graduate student (2015.3 ~ 2020.8) : Yonsei University  (Thesis - Influence of Amphoteric Oxide (Al₂O₃, FeO, and P₂O₅) on Ionic Structure and Properties of Aluminosilicate Slags)

The Ph.D researcher and the author of a paper in the fied of iron and steel research. The research fields are molten slag chemistry, high temperature mineral processing, ferrous / non-ferrous metallurgy, and  recycling waste materials for iron-making and steelmaking processes. (SCI publications: 9 papers)

Lidong Teng

Senior Metallurgist and Principal Engineer, ABB Metallurgy Sweden

Lidong Teng holds a PhD in Metallurgical Process Science from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. He is currently a senior metallurgist and principal engineer in ABB Metallurgy Sweden and working on the Ladle furnace and electric arc furnace EMS products with a focus on the effect of electromagnetic stirring on the improvement of steel quality, energy and cost effectiveness in the secondary metallurgy process. Lidong Teng has more than 80 publications and 9 patents related to the alloy and slag thermodynamics, metal recovery, and the application of electromagnetic stirring in the ladle and electric arc furnace.

Louis Brimacombe

Chairman , British Standards Committee on Sustainable Performance, Consumption and Production (SCP/1)

Louis is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, commonly known as IOM3, and he is a chartered Chemical Engineer. He is currently Chairman of the IOM3’s, Sustainable Development Group, a group with members across all materials sectors, supply chains and markets, and which also tries to unravel the complexities of trying to achieve ‘sustainability’ in line with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

He spent 35 years in the steel industry, the last 15 years of which as Head of Environmental Technology at Tata Steel, leading a research team which made cost effective environmental improvements for both the manufacturing processes and new product development areas. Louis is an experienced assessor of applications for funding grants for new and innovative research projects submitted to the UK Government Innovate UK competitions.

Markus Abel

Co-Owner and Managing Director, tripleS GbR

Education:

Diplom-Ingenieur FH for process and environmental engineering

Present Job Title:

Current Company and Plant Location:

Previous Job Titles from mid-nineties:

Professional Achievements:

Other Activities/Interests:

Matti Aula

Head of Research, Luxmet Oy

Matti Aula is the Head of Research at Luxmet Oy. Luxmet develops advanced control systems for metallurgical processes based on analysis of light. He also works as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Process Metallurgy Research Unit at University of Oulu. He has over ten years of experience in development and application of optical measurement technology for steelmaking processes. His work has mainly focused on electric arc furnaces. He received his doctoral and master´s degrees in Process Engineering from the University of Oulu, Finland. He is an author of twenty peer-reviewed scientific journal publications.

: www.luxmet.fi

Patrick Avis

Head of Power Trading, Marble Power

Patrick is currently the Head of Power Trading for Marble Power and has been active in the UK power market for over ten years having held positions at Smartest Energy, EDF Energy, EPH, and most recently, at Marble Power. He built out the trading desks at EPH and Marble Power and recently completed an MSc in Quantitative Finance with a dissertation focussing on forecasting and trading the UK imbalance market.

Peter Unwin

Global Industry Manager – Metals, AMETEK Land

Peter is a chartered mechanical engineer and long-serving member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). He has worked in the metals industry for over 30 years, during which time he has gained a broad knowledge of the production of steel and aluminium from melting through to finished products. He has spent most of his time leading technical sales teams and developing close customer relationships globally in the flat metals sector, specialising in equipment for casting and rolling steel and aluminium strip products.

Richard Birley

Principal Researcher, Materials Processing Institute

No bio provided

Russell Sindrey

Regional Manager, Hatch Ltd

Russell works for Hatch Ltd. in Toronto, Canada where he holds the role of Global Simulation Lead for the Iron & Steel industry. Russell has led the development of numerous operations and logistics simulations for steel producers around the world for the purposes of capital investment planning, improving plant capacity, optimizing plant operations and production planning and scheduling.

Russell is a graduate of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada and holds a Master’s of Applied Science in Engineering and an M.B.A. Russell has written several papers on the applications and benefits of discrete-event simulation for industry and is a part-time lecturer at the University of Toronto on the subject of logistics and plant design.

Sean Carden

Development Specialist – Resin Bonded Brick Centre of Excellence, Vesuvius UK

26 years experience in the refractories industry, beginning at Baker Refractories (Worksop) working on slide gate refractories R&D. Continued in slide gate refractories R&D when I moved to Vesuvius (Barlborough) in 2001. In 2007 became responsible for purging systems development until 2012 when I moved into R&D of resin bonded brick materials for primary & secondary steelmaking applications. I was also Analytical Lab Manager from 2015-2018.

Thomas Hay

Research Assistant - Energy and Mass Balances Group, RWTH Aachen University

Thomas Hay is a Research Assistant in the Energy and Mass Balances group of the Department for Industrial Furnaces and Heat Engineering at RWTH Aachen University. His on-going doctoral thesis project focuses on the mathematical modelling of the EAF process, but his work also includes modelling and life cycle analysis for other high temperature processes. He received his master’s degree in Energy Engineering (2017) and a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering (2015) from the RWTH Aachen University and started work on his doctoral thesis in 2017.

Trevor Rhodes

Procurement Category Manager, Liberty Steel UK

Trevor is Liberty Steel UK’s Procurement Category Manager for Energy and Utilities. He joined Liberty in 2017 and his responsibilities include sourcing and managing energy contracts for all the steel assets. Prior to joining Liberty, he spent over 10 years working directly in the energy industry, with roles in risk management and trading for a large portfolio of generation and end-user contracts.

Mike Knights

Executive Vice President, DANIELI UK HOLDING LTD.

Born in London, United Kingdom in 1964, he graduated in Materials Science and Applied Physics at Manchester Metropolitan University in 1986.

He started work at British Steel Engineering Steels as a graduate metallurgist and went on to hold various management positions in the steel industry mainly associated with EAF steelmaking and continuous casting, in a career spanning 24 years.

He joined DANIELI as Sales Direct for Continuous Slab Casters in 2010 and went onto become the Executive Vice President for Danieli Centro Met, where he was responsible for all commercial activities worldwide for the steelmaking and casting division of Danieli.

Now he is Executive Vice President Key Account Management for Europe, where he is responsible for all commercial activities for all product lines of Danieli.

: http://www.danieli.com

Michael Capstick

Senior Researcher, Materials Processing Institute

No bio provided

Musa Atas

Metallurgical and Materials Engineer,

Musa Atas graduated from Dokuz Eylul University in Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering in 2013. He started working at Tosyah Algerie company, which has one of the largest arc furnace facilities in the world, in Oran, Algeria in 2017 as a Operation Engineer at the Steel Production Facilities until 2020. He returned to Turkey in 2020, where he is currently working in SGS as a Technical Coordinator.

His experience in the steel production industry for 7 years has enabled Musa to gain further knowledge about various steel manufacturing methods. He has further knowledge in the quality aspects of metallurgical products from his SGS Turkey work in a well known company in the world. His work experience in international companies has improved his bilingual skills as well as team working and leadership.

Eric Perrin

Associate Director, Lhoist

Eric Perrin, Physical Doctor in material sciences has 32 years of experience in the iron and steelmaking process. He started his career in 1989 as Research engineer for the ArcelorMittal group in Maizieres-les-Metz. Then as process engineer, he joined ArcelorMittal Fos sur mer steelmaking plant. In charge of the process steelmaking process and the continuous casting process development he was as example in charge of optimizing the efficiency of the Ultra-low carbon steel (IF steel grade)  route and the entire steelmaking process in terms of production cost and quality improvements. Then in 2012 As associate director he joined the Business Innovation center based in Belgium of the Lhoist group. He is in charge of developing new Ca/Mg based solutions for steel applications. His favorite areas are flux recipe optimization for the BOF and EAF steelmaking process and new innovative solutions toward circular economy.

Sanjeev Manocha

Global Steel Market Manger, Carmeuse

Sanjeev Manocha (25+ years of experience) is a graduate engineer in metallurgy, Master Black Belt – Lean Six Sigma, and Executive MBA. He began his professional career as R&D engineer and subsequently gained experience in quality, production, projects management, and led operations as General manager before joining Carmeuse, a global leader in providing mineral based solutions. Sanjeev is leading steel part of business for Carmeuse as Global Steel Market Manger. Sanjeev has extensive knowledge and relations in the international steel and lime industry and many years of global experience in the scrap and DRI based steel making.

: www.carmeuse.com

Professor Joohyun Park

Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Hanyang University

Prof. Joohyun Park received his bachelor and master’s degrees in Metallurgical Engineering from Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea) in 1997 and 1999, respectively, and completed his Ph.D. in High temperature physical chemistry of process metallurgy at Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea) in 2002. He was a Senior Research Scientist in Stainless Steel Research Group in the Technical Research Laboratory, POSCO, Korea from 2002 to 2008, during which he conducted the technological improvement of EAF steelmaking, AOD-VOD refining, and continuous casting processes. He was an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ulsan, Korea from 2008 to 2013, and now he is a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Hanyang University, Korea since 2013. He is also an Affiliated Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, and a Guest Professor in the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallurgy, University of Science and Technology Beijing, China.

He serves as a Key Reader of Metallurgical & Materials Transactions B, TMS and ASM International, USA since 2013, an International Advisory Board of ISIJ International, Iron and Steel Institute of Japan, from 2017 to 2020, and an Editorial Committee of Metals & Materials International, Korea Institute of Metals and Materials (KIM+) since 2013. He was a recipient of the POSCO Iron & Steel Paper Award (2001), POSCO Iron & Steel Technology Award (2005), Best Young Scientist Award from KIM+ (2012), Marcus A. Grossmann Young Authors Award from TMS (2014), Sawamura Award from ISIJ (2017), Extraction & Processing Division (EPD) Science Award from TMS (2020), and Key Reader Award from TMS (2021). He has authored more than 180 peer reviewed scientific papers and about 400 conference presentations in the field of process metallurgy including the physical chemistry of metals and slags, clean steel technology, etc.

Dr Andrew Pimm

Research Fellow, School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds

Dr Andrew Pimm is a Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, investigating the options for decarbonising the UK steel industry in a 3-year project funded by the EPSRC Centre for Research in Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS). His work so far has focused on hydrogen-based steelmaking and policy options to drive industrial decarbonisation. Andrew is also an expert on energy storage and energy systems analysis, having previously worked on modelling and development of energy storage technologies ranging from home batteries to large thermo-mechanical storage systems such as compressed air and pumped heat.

Dr Richard Curry

Future Manufacturing Hub Programme Manager, SUSTAIN

Dr. Richard Curry is the SUSTAIN Future Manufacturing Hub Programme Manager. Richard began his career in academia working on novel harsh environment sensor arrays for bio-electronic applications, including the measurement of  cell signalling and disease markers In 2011 he joined Tata Steel R&D to concentrate on the challenges of developing sensors and systems within the steelmaking and casting processes. In the lead up to the separation of Tata’s UK business units, a time of growing concern for the longevity of UK steel and the increasing need to move to a carbon free, green solution for the industry, Richard’s passion shifted to focus upon the rejuvenation of UK’s steelmaking’s expertise and the identification of key technologies to drive the transition. As well as leading several research groups within Tata R&D, Richard was a key driver in the spin-out of the Materials Processing Institute from Tata Teesside Laboratories. After the launch of MPI, Richard held the role of Deputy CEO and Operations Director, including a brief 6 months secondment as Commercial Director where he actively initiated many key relationships with industrial and academic partners; expanding MPI’s offer to the greater metals and foundation industry sectors, both domestically and abroad. Now based at Swansea, Richard is committed to the development of SUSTAIN as the UK’s National Steel Research Hub and driving the UK to become world leading in the area of recycling and materials circularity.

: https://www.sustainsteel.ac.uk/
: sustain-steel/
: @SustainSteel

Alexander Schlemminger

Mechanical Engineer, QuantoLux GmbH

Alexander is mechanical engineer with a focus on production technology and quality management. He is passionate about technologies to optimize and increase process efficiencies from an economical and ecological point of view. Since 5 years he is fascinated by the possibilities of lasers to achieve this goal in various industries in order to leave our children an earth worth living on.

He is particularly fascinated by the fact that in steel production. Here, due to the high volumes produced, even small improvements can have tremendous effects. Even a per-mille optimization can lead to savings of well over 1,000 tons of CO2 per year per each small electric steel mill. Hardly any other industry can provide such a CO2 savings potential.

Thomas Kirk

CEO, Foresight Data Machines Ltd

Tim Wessels

Machine Learning Engineer, Smart Steel Technologies

Tim Wessels is a Machine Learning Engineer at Smart Steel Technologies. 

The company offers AI-based software products to optimize steel production. Leading steel manufacturers apply SST software 24/7 in production. After a very short set-up project, production quality is substantially increased and energy consumption is reduced. 

In his work at SST, Mr Wessels draws from his experience as a data scientist at multiple start-ups. As a top graduate of TU Berlin, he holds a Master's degree in Computer Science with a specialization on intelligent systems and a Bachelor's degree in Physics.

Hans-Jörg Krassnig

CSO, Mettop GmbH

James Moss

Partner, First River Consulting

James Moss, partner in First River, has been a strategy consultant in Europe and the United States since 1985, helping steel companies develop and implement business & corporate strategies. He has consulted widely to the North American and international steel industries since 1989 on assignments ranging from raw materials planning, product range extensions, senior team building to wholesale strategic and organizational change.

James’ experience covers all types of steel products in carbon as well as stainless and specialty grade families. His work is focused on helping senior executives develop clearly focused strategies that lead to growth and superior returns. Prior to forming First River with partner Tony Taccone in 1998, James practiced independently following many years as a consultant with Beddows & Company, now part of HATCH.

James is a dual citizen of the US & the United Kingdom and lives in Pittsburgh, PA. He holds a Masters in Strategy & Organization Development from Pepperdine University, California in addition to a Masters in English Literature from Cambridge University, England.

: https://first-river.com/

Mr Yeoh Wee Jin

Secretary General, South East Asia Iron and Steel Institute (SEAISI)

Mr. Yeoh Wee Jin is the Secretary General of the South East Asia Iron and Steel Institute (SEAISI), which is based with its office in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia. He has been working in the steel business for about 20 years, covering corporate strategy, market research & analysis, project feasibility studies, M&A, government relations, as well as general management of a few regional business units of NatSteel Holdings (Singapore). He has a wide knowledge of the ASEAN steel market as well as industry experience in the various countries where he managed the business units. He has also actively participated in SEAISI activities at regional as well as at ASEAN levels in the past.

Mr. Yeoh holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) degree from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Melbourne, Australia), a Graduate Diploma in Computing Studies from the University of Canberra and a Master of Business Administration degree from the Australian Graduate School Management at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Paul Haimes

Vice President, Field Engineering, PTC

Paul Haimes is the Vice President of Field Engineering for PTC in EMEA. In this role he is responsible for leading teams of Business Developers and Technical Specialists across PTC’s major geographies within Europe.

Experience

After graduation, Mr. Haimes worked in Product Development for the Power Tool industry.

Since joining PTC over 20 years ago as an Application Specialist, Mr. Haimes has held a range of managerial positions within the Pre-Sales organisation - initially, leading the UK team, expanding to Northern Europe and since 2006, as Vice President at an EMEA level.

Working with customers throughout EMEA, Mr. Haimes has over 25 years of Product Development experience.  His key areas of expertise are around Industry 4.0 and include Computer Aided Engineering, Product Lifecycle Management and more recently, Smart Connected Products and the Smart Factory.

Education

Mr. Haimes has a Masters degree in Industrial Design and Bachelors degree from Loughborough University.

: https://www.ptc.com/

Tina Conroy MChemDip Occ Hyg CMFOH

Chartered Occupational Hygienist,

Following a successful career in the steel and chemical industries, including working for Tata Steel, Tina joined Pragma in 2017 as a Chartered Occupational Hygienist. Her knowledge and experience includes recognising, evaluating and advising regarding measures to control a wide range of hazards in the workplace and writing, implementing and auditing strategies on a local, national and international platform.

Tina’s areas of expertise include respiratory diseases (lung cancer, COPD, asthma), skin diseases (skin cancer, dermatitis, sensitisation) and physical agents (noise, vibration, ionising radiation, thermal).

Tina’s depth of knowledge and understanding in these areas is most regularly employed in her role as an expert witness helping the courts to analyse the specific circumstances surrounding cases involving occupational and environmental health hazards. Tina also remains active in the field of Occupational Hygienist and supports Pragma in delivering consultancy services.

Tina has also been a Chartered Member of the British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS) since 2015 and is actively involved as a regional organiser.

Find out more about Tina here: https://pragmaandassociates.co.uk/about-us/people/tina-conroy/

: https://pragmaandassociates.co.uk/

Tony Hartwell

Sustainable Materials Engineering Ltd

An extractive metallurgist with extensive global experience across mineral and metal supply chains.

After 6 years operational experience at mines and smelters in Africa Tony became Technical Manager at a producer of aluminium and titanium ferroalloys from scrap. He then worked on the design and installation of mineral processing plants around the world.  Tony then spent 15 years at a company supplying services to the metallurgical industry becoming Director of Technology & Process Development.

Since 2006 Tony has worked on innovations across mineral and metal supply chains through the Universities of Birmingham, Exeter, Leicester and Oxford. Tony coordinated the development of the £16 million ‘Security of Supply of Mineral Resources” R&D programme supported by UK and Brazilian Government funding. From 2018 - 2021 Tony was Project Lead for the ReLIB EV battery recycling R&D project (£11 million).

Since 2007 Tony has provided Consultancy Services through his company Sustainable Materials Engineering Ltd and has been called as an expert witness.

Tony majored in Extractive Metallurgy at Swansea and has completed Masters degrees; in Metallurgical Engineering (University of Pennsylvania) and Mineral Process Design (Imperial College).

: www.sustainablematerialsengineering.co.uk

Emmanuel Placier

Business Development, AMI Automation

Emmanuel Placier, as part of the AMI team based in Europe, is responsible for Business Development in Europe, Middle East and Asia. Graduated from the Monterrey Institute of Technology with master’s degree in the Czech Technical University in Prague for mechatronics and control engineering, he has focused his career in the steel industry, particularly Electrode Regulation and EAF Optimization. Starting first as a regulation engineer for several years, on 2013 he began working on developing business opportunities for AMI.

Piero Frittella

R&D Coordinator , Feralpi Siderurgica (part of Feralpi Group).

Piero Frittella has over 15 years work experience in R&D within the Steel Sector, where is currently working as R&D Coordinator for Feralpi Siderurgica (part of Feralpi Group).

Previously working for Rina Centro Sviluppo Materiali since 2000 has worked mainly for plant and technology developments, process modelling in Steelmaking area, EAFProcess developments.

Passed in Feralpi Group in 2016 promoting technological developments in Steelmaking rolling and in sustainability 

: http://www.feralpigroup.com/

Sarah Hinton

Senior Development Metallurgist, Outokumpu BA Long Products, SMACC

Sarah graduated from the University of Sheffield with an MEng in Metallurgy in 2009 and joined Outokumpu in 2013. Her first project was to develop a new steelmaking technique to improve the machinability of the Prodec grade portfolio, which has enabled new Business Partners and distribution centres. She is currently the Senior Development Metallurgist at Outokumpu’s Long Products stainless steel meltshop in Sheffield, focussing on customer requirements and quality assurance. She also works in grade development, designing stainless grades tailored to customer-specific process routes. I have managed several improvement projects including maximising yield on martensitic grades susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement and increasing through-route stability of precipitation-hardened grades.

In 2021, she was appointed as a member of the IOM3 Audit Committee.

Gregor Lammer

Head of APO & AI, RHI Magnesita

Gregor is the head of APO & AI and has more than 12 years in industrial projects for automation, digitalization and software development in steel plant environments around the world. His vision is about removing the entrenched systems and habits of traditional management culture and introducing a more sophisticated evidence-based system. At RHI Magnesita, he is driving the AI business for customer applications with a focus on industry 4.0 for our customers worldwide.

Prior to RHI Magnesita, he spent eight years in the automotive industry at MAGNA Steyr where he helped build up the project management capabilities in the three engineering centers in France.

He holds multiple patents in the field of 4.0 and he is based in Vienna, Austria.

Dr Silvia Madeddu

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Silvia Madeddu is a postdoctoral researcher specialised on decarbonisation strategies for energy-intensive industries. She holds a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from The University of Sheffield (United Kingdom). After completing her PhD, she worked for a company based in Cambridge as Chief Scientist for the development of new Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) technologies. In 2018, she joined the Global Energy Systems modelling group at PIK, where she has focused on the analysis of the electrification potential in industry and in the energy transition at European and global level. Her areas of expertise are energy use and materials demand in industrial processes, innovation and economic opportunities arising from the industrial energy transition. She took part in the START project and she is currently involved in the NAVIGATE and SHAPE projects.