Project Team

Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Department of Materials and Minerals
Website
E-mail

Dr. Amadei is Distinguished Professor and Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He received his PhD in 1982 from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Amadei is the Founding Director of the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities. He is also the Founding President of Engineers Without Borders – USA and the co-founder of the Engineers Without Borders-International network. Among other distinctions, Dr. Amadei is the 2007 co-recipient of the Heinz Award for the Environment; the recipient of the 2008 ENR Award of Excellence; the recipient of the 2015 Washington and ASCE OPAL awards; the recipient of the 2016 C. H. Dunn Award of the Construction Industry Institute; an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Construction; and an elected Senior Ashoka Fellow. He holds six honorary doctoral degrees (UMass Lowell; Carroll College; Clarkson; Drexel; Worcester Polytechnic Institute; and Technion in Israel). In 2013 and 2014, Dr. Amadei served as a Science Envoy to Pakistan and Nepal for the U.S. Department of State. Dr. Amadei holds a commercial pilot license (multi-engine land, instrument). View Site

Luke Danielson is an attorney, professor, researcher, and consultant on minerals policy, national development strategies, and environmental and social performance in the mining industry. He is known for his work both on international and national levels on minerals policies and has worked with over a dozen governments, including Mozambique, Chile, Peru, and the Peoples Republic of China. He was a 2015 inductee into the International Mining Technology Hall of Fame for his contributions to Environmental Management and Stewardship, and he served as the executive director of the global Mining Minerals and Sustainable Development Project (MMSD).  View Site

Irma Gonzalez Duque is a lawyer and consultant who works for the Agencia Nacional de Minería (National Mining Agency) in Colombia. She holds a master’s degree in international relations, has worked in the NGO sector, and currently works on social management issues for the mining and petroleum industries. View Site

Dr. Ferry is a cultural anthropologist who has written on silver mining and patrimony in Guanajuato, Mexico; value and mineral specimens; small-scale gold mining in Colombia; resources and temporalities; and cooperatives. She has interests in value, materiality, mining, and finance, and has done significant fieldwork in Mexico, Colombia, and the United States. View Site

Dr. Hugh Miller, Associate Professor in Mining Engineering at CSM, has conducted research and applied work in the ASGM sector for more than 15 years. From 2001-2005, he served as the Co-Director of the University of Arizona’s International Center for Mine Health, Safety, and Environment, which focused on addressing ASGM issues throughout the developing World. Dr. Miller was also a Co-PI for a NIH Fogerty International grant that examined health and safety challenges facing the ASGM sector in Zambia and Zimbabwe. He has served as a PI for several capacity building projects that were directly influenced by ASGM in Afghanistan and the Philippines.  View Site

Dr. Laura Phipps is on the faculty of the graduate and undergraduate public health programs at the University of Texas at Arlington. She holds a B.S. in Microbiology from Texas A&M University, and a Master of Public Health with a concentration in Environmental and Occupational Health and a Doctor of Public Health from UNTHSC. Dr. Phipps worked in cancer and infectious disease research laboratories before transitioning into public health. Her areas of interest include public health emergency management and global environmental health, particularly regarding medical hazardous waste management and infectious disease control practices in developing countries.

Dr. Rick Vaz, Director of WPI’s Center for Project-Based Learning, oversaw the expansion of WPI’s Global Projects Program from 18 locations in 2006 to 46 locations in 2015, increased student participation in off-campus project programs, from 40 percent to over 70 percent, and oversees efforts to evaluate and enhance the quality of WPI’s interdisciplinary research project requirement, including a major study evaluating the long-term impacts of 38 years of project work by WPI alumni. In 2016, he was recognized with the Gordon Prize, the highest distinction in engineering education awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. View Site

Dr. Marcello Veiga is a professor in the Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering at the University of British Columbia. For over thirty years, he has consulted as a metallurgical engineer and environmental geochemist for mining and consulting companies in the US, Canada, and Latin America. From 2002 to 2008, he was a Chief Technical Advisor to the GEF/UNDP/UNIDO Global Mercury Project, where he implemented environmental and health assessments of mercury pollution from ASGM, implemented procedures to reduce mercury emissions, and worked with miners in the local fabrication of equipment to reduce exposure to mercury vapors and increase gold recovery in Asia, Africa, and South America. View Program