Ghanaian Professor Wins Top SME Award In US

A Ghanaian mining engineering professor, Dr Samuel Frimpong, based in the United States of America (USA) has been awarded the 2018 Daniel C. Jackling Award by the Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) for his significant contributions to mining.

The award was presented to him during the SME annual conference two weeks ago at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

He was awarded for his long-term contributions to mining engineering education, research, and professional development and for his international recognition as an outstanding scholar in mining engineering.

The Daniel C. Jackling Award, established in 1953, and funded by the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers (AIME), is presented to persons for significant contributions to technical progress in mining, geology, and geophysics.

The award consists of a plaque appropriately engraved with the name of the award, the name of the recipient, and the citation of the particular achievement for which the award is being conferred.

Dr Samuel Frimpong is Professor and Robert Quenon Endowed Chair of Mining and Nuclear Engineering and Director of the Heavy Mining Machinery Laboratory at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, USA.

He is also a member of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) board on natural resources and Center for Disease Control of National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (CDC-NIOSH) research advisory board.

He holds a PhD (1992) from University of Alberta, MS (1988) from University of Zambia, and Postgraduate Diploma (1986) and BS (1985) from the School of Mines of the Kwame University of Science and Technology (Now University of Mines and Technology, UMaT, Tarkwa). He had his secondary education at Opoku Ware Senior High School in Ghana.

Frimpong has over 25 years of experience in research, education, consulting, and industry practice. He previously worked as Professor, Associate and Assistant Professor (University of Alberta).

He is a Registered Professional Engineer in Canada, and a member of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Society for Modeling and Simulation International.

Dr Frimpong’s research has resulted in 1 patent, 3 books, 4 book chapters, 95 refereed journal publications and 145 refereed conference publications, among others.

He has also delivered 23 keynote addresses and invited presentations at international conferences. He has successfully supervised 15 PhD and 18 master’s researches. He has also supervised 6 post-doctoral research fellows and 2 research associates.

He currently has several PhD students working on pertinent research areas in mining engineering including machine-formation interactions, mining truck vision, application of artificial intelligence to mining truck haulage, dragline dynamics, and others.

Dr Frimpong has also been recognized with Missouri S&T Chancellor’s Leadership Award, Robert H. Quenon Endowed Chair, Canadian Petroleum Institute’s Distinguished Lecturer Award, Award of Distinction by World Mining Congress, University of Alberta/CIDA PhD Scholar, Life Patron of the University of Mines and Tech. Alumni Association, Grand Award by Northwest Mining Association and a UNESCO Research Fellowship.

Dr Frimpong as part of the award process delivered the Jackling Lecture on “CYBERMINE FOR ZERO FATALITY IN SURFACE MINING”. This is one of his research areas which seeks to develop fully autonomous surface mining systems made of machines, robots and central information system capable of undertaking all the surface mining operations with very minimal human involvement.