Mackay shines at AEMA 2023

Mackay School faculty and students made an impact at annual conference

Three women work at a booth surrounded by maps, documents and booklets. They are tabling for the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.

Students in the geosciences table for the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology at AEMA.

Mackay shines at AEMA 2023

Mackay School faculty and students made an impact at annual conference

Students in the geosciences table for the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology at AEMA.

Three women work at a booth surrounded by maps, documents and booklets. They are tabling for the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.

Students in the geosciences table for the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology at AEMA.

At the American Exploration & Mining Association conference, held at the Nugget in December, Mackay School students shared posters and faculty spoke during panel sessions.

Students and program directors tabled at booths for the Mackay School, the Ralph J. Roberts Center for Research in Economic Geology and the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.

Department Mining and Metallurgical Engineering professors Ehsan Vahidi and Javad Sattarvand hosted technical sessions at the conference about Green Mining and AI and Data Analytics in Mining.

  • Jennifer Reilly, Ehsan Vahidi, Dawn Snell, Alexia Carver and John Leland smile at the Mackay School booth.
  • Dawn Snell smiles with a student. (photo courtesy of Frank Haxton)
  • Trista McLaughlin smiles in front of her poster at AEMA.
  • Alexia Carver smiles in front of her poster at AEMA.
  • Ralston Peterson and John Leland speak with a visitor while tabling for the Mackay School.

Students presented posters about their research, including students who participated in the American-Made Carbon Management Collegiate Competition. Trista McLaughlin, a student in Vahidi’s group, took third place in the undergraduate poster competition and doctoral student Seyedkamal Mousavinezhad in Vahidi’s group won fourth place in the graduate student poster session.

Three students from Vahidi’s research group also presented, including Sima Nikfar (“Comparing Life Cycle Assessments of Brine-Based Lithium Extraction Methods”), Saeede Kadivar (“Environmental life cycle assessment of gold production from refractory ores”) and Sheida Nili (“Environmental life cycle analysis of direct lithium extraction from brine resources in Nevada “). Several students in Sattarvand’s research group, Jose Gomez, Milad Ghahramniisalou and Amin Monirimorad, presented in technical sessions.

Students also participated in a networking event, where they had the opportunity to connect with and meet industry employers and researchers. The annual meeting also brings many Mackay alumni to Reno, who are invited to attend an alumni mixer during the conference.