Early Career Professionals

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The Early Career Professionals Committee (ECPC) was established in 2016 with the aim of representing the interests of SEG members within the first 8 years of their economic geology careers as well as assisting with the implementation of Society and Foundation initiatives designed to benefit early career professionals. The committee consists of volunteers who are all passionate about supporting the professional development of senior students and graduates, and they work towards providing members with access to events, programs, and online content that can be used to bridge the gap between university and professional life.

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Function

Reporting directly to the SEG Council, the ECPC is responsible for advising on matters concerning early career professionals within the economic geology sector, whether members be working in industry, academia, or government. The group also is tasked with proposing innovative ways that SEG can support the talent, network, and skills development of ECPs, and subsequently contributing to the organization of relevant opportunities.

Read the ECPC Charter

The ECPC comprises between 6 and 8 early career professionals from across the economic geology world who sit for 3-year terms. Each year, the committee members vote to elect a Chair who subsequently leads the group and directs its collective efforts; for the benefit of continuity and an effective handover, the outgoing Chair retains the position of immediate Past Chair. In addition to geographic representation, each committee member is also assigned a particular role/remit which helps provide focus and accountability. Finally, the committee aims to meet roughly once a quarter and summary reports are submitted to the SEG Council at the annual SEG Conference and PDAC Convention.

Get Involved

The ECPC is always on the look-out for enthusiastic and passionate people who want to join our team and contribute to our goals.

If you are interested or want more information, please email us at ecp@segweb.org.

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Angela Isaura Santos Costa

Chair

Base: Australia
Sector: Academic

Angela is a PhD candidate at CODES (Centre for Ore Deposit and Earth Science) as part of a regional initiative towards critical minerals in Tasmania. Before joining CODES, Angela worked for 4 years in the mining industry, first as a mine geologist for Vale company in Sossego, a deposit related to the Southern IOCG Copper Belt in Carajás Brazil, and after as a project geologist at Anglo American Group of Discovery and Geoscience focused on Ni-Cu-PGE potential in Brazil. She holds a Bachelor’s in Geology and a Master of Business Administration in Data Science, both from the University of São Paulo. Angela has been involved with SEG since 2017 when she was in her bachelor’s as an active member of the Student Chapter in the University of São Paulo where she organized several events and students field trips.

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George Nkonde

Conferences Liaison

Base: Zambia
Sector: Exploration

George is a highly motivated geoscientist who obtained a Bachelor of Mineral Sciences degree from the University of Zambia in 2021. Since then, he has served as a Geologist at First Quantum Minerals Ltd in Zambia, actively participating in mineral exploration.

George currently plays an important role in the field of systematic surface and downhole data acquisition, with a focus on interpreting multi-disciplinary integrated datasets for both Greenfield and Brownfield Sedimentary hosted mineral exploration in the Central African Copperbelt. He has played an active part in regional generative exploration activities, primarily focused on the appraisal of regional prospectivity in portions of the Katangan Basin, for nearly three years. George’s contributions include the gathering and analysis of regional geological, geochemical, and geophysical datasets, all with the goal of improving our understanding of regional stratigraphy, gross depositional environment, structure, and mineral systems. Among his notable accomplishments is his participation in a collaborative traverse with the Geological Survey Department of Zambia and the University of Oxford, sponsored by First Quantum Minerals. George's contributions extend to early-stage and Due Diligence projects, where he engages in license-scale geological mapping, core logging and the acquisition and interpretation of soil geochemical data. His expertise has expanded to brownfields/near-mine exploration, involving core logging, operational management, and reviewing datasets aligned with the exploration model.

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Poliana Vidal Salgado

Online Content

Base: Brazil
Sector: Academic

Poliana graduated from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and currently works as part of the Exploration Team at Nexa Resources, having previously served as a mine geologist intern at the Zn-Pb Vazante Underground Mine in Brazil for nearly two years. For her undergraduate thesis at UNICAMP, Poliana conducted petrographic characterization and geological mapping of Zn-silicate and sulfide ores in the Vazante mine. Poliana has been an active member of the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) since 2018. During this time, she held key positions, including serving as the president of UNICAMP's SEG Student Chapter in 2020, and as South America's Students Representative for SEG's Students Committee until 2023.

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Koray Tasbicen

Newsletters

Base: USA / Turkey
Sector: Academic

Koray Tasbicen is a Ph.D. student at the Colorado School of Mines working on the evolution of Carlin-type gold deposits in Nevada. Previously, he worked on Au, Cu-Fe, and Cu-Mo systems in several metallogenic belts, including South Tien-Shan (Uzbekistan), Kiruna (Sweden), SW Laramide (AZ, USA), and Tethyan Belt (Turkey). He holds a master's degree from New Mexico Tech, USA, and a bachelor's from METU, Turkey. He is intensely engaged with the Society of Economic Geologists and served on the student's committee for 2021-2023 as the North America student chapter's representative. He volunteered with the Discovery to Recovery Podcast Series Team and hosted episodes during Season 4.

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Axel Cima

Online Content

Base: Australia
Sector: Academic

Axel is an Argentine-Italian geologist who studied Geology in University of Córdoba, Argentina. He is currently a PhD Candidate at CODES (University of Tasmania) where his main focus for the next years will be developing vectoring and fertility assessment tools for Porphyry Cu-Au deposits by studying mineral inclusions in chlorite and muscovite from its alteration haloes. Axel has over 4 years of industry experience, for most of which he worked in high sulphidation epithermal Au deposit exploration at El Indio Belt in the Argentine Andes for Barrick. He also worked in metamorphosed low-sulphidation deposits at the Tipasjärvi Greenstone belt in Finland, where he also received his MSc. in Economic Geology degree from University of Oulu.

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Luca Paolillo

Online Content / Outreach

Base: Peru
Sector: Exploration

Luca is currently working as an exploration geologist with LKAB on the Kiruna IOA deposit in northern Sweden, where his main focus is on the understanding of the hydrothermal alterations associated with the deposit. Luca has over 3 years of industry experience, for most of which he worked in porphyry Cu-Au deposit exploration with NuevaUnión (Teck-Newmont JV) in Chile. He also worked in epithermal deposit exploration in Mexico on projects in different stages of exploration. Luca received both his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in geology from University of Geneva, Switzerland. For his M.Sc. thesis he studied the metallogenesis of the Kışladaǧ porphyry gold deposit in Turkey.

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Jan Schulz-Isenbeck

Students Liaison

Base: Germany
Sector: Exploration

Jan is currently working as a project geologist in the discovery team of Anglo American in Europe. Prior to joining Anglo American in 2022, he worked for mid-tier and junior companies on early-stage exploration drill programs in Germany and Sweden. After starting his professional career in 2020, Jan has worked with different mineral systems, including sediment-hosted Cu, intermediate sulfidation epithermal Ag, polymetallic VMS as well as BIF-hosted Fe. Jan has B.Sc. in geosciences from the University of Münster and M.Sc. in economic geology from the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, where he was part of the SEG student chapter board for three years. Besides that, Jan was a visiting student at different universities in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Jan is a passionate geologist who loves to read rocks to reveal the processes that have formed our planet and its mineral deposits.

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Victor Torres Pacheco

Mentorship Liaison

Base: Peru / Ecuador / Australia
Sector: Exploration / Academic

Victor is a geologist with experience from generative to advanced exploration projects in multiple copper and gold mineral systems in South America; gold-sapphire-lithium exploration in Madagascar; ruby exploration in Mozambique; geometallurgical modeling and program execution. Part of the discovery and development team of the Soledad project in Peru with over 63,000 meters of drilling.

Graduated from the San Marcos University-Peru with thesis research for an engineering degree supported by IAMGOLD, Peru (2016-2017). Having done an exchange to the University of Chile (2015); a master’s in Economic Geology at UTAS, Australia (2018-2021), and currently a part-time Ph.D. candidate at UTAS, researching the mineralized tourmaline breccias at Soledad, Peru.