On Thursday evening, 12th March, at the Royal School of Mines, MinSouth hosted its local heat for the IOM3 Young Persons Lecture Competition (YPLC). This year, the competition was particularly fierce; the three finalists were selected by MinSouth from a large group of impressive abstracts, making it a significant achievement just to reach the presentation stage.
The Presentations
The audience was treated to three excellent talks that gave our judging panel a very tough task in deciding the winner:
- Thurston Blount (Royal School of Mines): The Application of Zircon Geochemistry on the Hishikari Low-Sulphidation Epithermal Deposit, Japan.
- Bioantika (Camborne School of Mines): Towards Zero Waste Mining: Optimising Ore-sand By-products in Copper Processing Circuits.
- Kara Gupta (WSP): Characterising Hanging Wall Fracture Systems Using a Discrete Fracture Network Approach.
The Judging Panel
We were honored to have a distinguished panel of judges providing their expertise and feedback:
- Nicola Jackson: Vice President of Business Development, Sibanye-Stillwater.
- Sarah Gordon: CEO and Co-founder of Satarla; Professor at Imperial College.
- Jake Oliver: MinSouth Council Student Representative, University of Leicester.
Congratulations to the Finalists
After much deliberation, the judges named Bioantika as the winner of the 2026 MinSouth heat.
We would like to extend our congratulations to the winner and to all the students for being selected for the heat. Delivering such high-quality presentations under the pressure of a competition is a testament to their hard work and expertise.
In the image (from left to right): Nicola Jackson, Sarah Gordon, Jake Oliver, Thurston Blount, Bioantika (Winner), and Kara Gupta.
