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MINERALS INDUSTRY EDUCATION AND TRAINING II
The Gender Diversity of Delegates at Mineral Processing
Conferences
The data investigated so far give an indication on the proportion of
women entering the mineral processing industry, and those at positions
of esteem, however we can also use those attending conferences as a
reasonable indication of the diversity of the industry. Using delegate lists
from selected MEI conferences (http://www.min-eng.com/), it is possible
also to obtain an indication of the gender diversity of the different sectors
within mineral processing, both in terms of academia/industry split and by
the specific field (i.e. Flotation, comminution, process mineralogy).
As with all data, there are assumptions and caveats that have been made
in order to draw broad conclusions from the information. These are as
follows:
People attending conferences have a range of backgrounds (e.g. non-
technical, sales etc.)
People in mining and mineral processing tend not to work in the same
country from which they graduated
Many people enter technical and academic mineral processing roles
from backgrounds such as chemical engineering
There is no classification of hierarchy in the analysis; i.e. a professor and
PhD student count equally as “academic”
Delegates representing industry will typically be those at higher
positions within the organisation; this may not reflect accurately the
gender diversity of a company/the industry
Some names may have been misplaced
With these assumptions and simplifications in mind, in the following
section, we estimate the demographics of delegates at five MEI conferences:
Flotation ’03, ’07, ’15, Comminution ’14 and Process Mineralogy ’14.
Flotation Conferences
The breakdown of female delegates attending the Flotation ’15
conference, held in Cape Town, by region and by sector (i.e. academia or
Meeting the Challenges of a
160 Section 4
Changing World
