PROGRAM

Advanced process control in mineral processing: Trends and Opportunities

Prof. Ian K Craig
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering
University of Pretoria

Ian Keith Craig received the B.Eng. degree in electronic engineering from the University of Pretoria, the S.M. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Ph.D and M.B.A. degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand. He heads the control systems group in the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering at the University of Pretoria (UP), featured in the April 2024 issue of the IEEE Control Systems Magazine. Before joining UP, Ian was part of the Measurement and Control Division of Mintek, where he was involved in designing, implementing, and commercialising advanced controllers for the mineral processing industry. His research interests include model-based control and optimisation in the process industries.

Ian was editor-in-chief of the journal Control Engineering Practice from 2005 to 2010 and the president of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) from 2011 to 2014. He chaired the IFAC Foundation Board from 2017-2023 and is currently the IFAC Publications Management Board Chair. Ian is a Fellow of the South African Academy of Engineering and has received the Exceptional Academic Achiever award from the University of Pretoria five times. He has presented plenary addresses at a number of conferences, including the 5th IFAC Workshop on Mining, Mineral and Metal Processing, the Chinese Process Control Conference and the Control Conference Africa.