Isobel Clark BSc MSc DIC PhD FSS FSAIMM FIMM CEng

Isobel Clark BSc MSc DIC PhD FSS FSAIMM FIMM CEng

Curriculum Vitae

Teaching Experience

Royal School of Mines Educational Technology Fellowship

University of the Witwatersrand Short courses and seminars

Royal School of Mines

In just over eleven years at the RSM, the emphasis in my teaching was always towards more comprehensible and relevant components to those mathematical and statistical subjects which were included within the Mining Engineering and Mineral Technology undergraduate courses. At the post-graduate level, the Mineral Production MSc course evolved over this period --- tending away from the more technical options such as valuation and rock mechanics and towards the more management oriented 'core' component. At the time of leaving the Department of Mineral Resources Engineering, my official teaching load was as follows:

Statistics (20 hours) and FORTRAN (10 hours) to second year undergraduate Mining and Mineral Technology students (course MM2) plus tutorials (15 hours).

"Mathematical Methods applied to Mining", final year undergraduate Mining and Mineral Technology students (course MEM'B'). 20 hours on statistical models in Mineral Processing; 20 hours on ore reserve estimation.

Organisation and co-ordination of Computer Project Week for final year students. Credited as course work on MEM'B', 27 hours. All projects centred around the solution of "real" problems using a computer. All departmental staff were involved in the conception and supervision of suitable projects.

"Industrial statistics and principles of ore reserve estimation", a compulsory section of the MSc course in Mineral Production Management (MPM), 30 hours.

"Ore reserve estimation", a technical option for the MPM course. Classical, statistical and geostatistical methods applied to case studies and practical work. Assessed on project reports. 30 hours formal teaching.

Dissertation supervision for MSc students on the MPM course. Up to four students each summer.

Research supervision for PhD students.

Occasional guest lectures for Mineral Technology MSc students and in the Geology Department.

After officially leaving the RSM at the end of 1982 to set up Geostokos Limited, I continued to teach at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels on a part-time basis. This arrangement lasted for two academic years until a replacement lecturer was found.

Research Fellowship in Educational Technology

In 1978, at the request of the Head of Department, I competed for and was awarded the Second Imperial College Fellowship in Educational Technology. The Fellowship was set up to enable academic staff to take a sabbatical year to investigate a chosen aspect of teaching within their speciality. Applications were open to all members of academic staff within Imperial College and competition was considerable.

My chosen field of study was the service teaching of mathematics to students of our department in particular and to the Engineering Faculty in general. As with many departments, we found that our students under-achieved in mathematics courses compared with the expectations based on their school performance at 'A' level. After several years of 'informal tutorials' with first and second year students and repeated attempts to improve the situation, it was felt that a formal period of research might prove more effective.

The major conclusions from this project were, perhaps, eminently predictable. Service teaching must be seen by both host and service departments as a valuable and rewarding task. In particular, lecturers from the service department must be encouraged to view service teaching as a 'main-stream' activity and not simply as a chore to keep up their teaching credits. Engineering staff should be intimately involved in the development and running of lecture/problem classes --- in particular to emphasise the relevance of the techniques taught. One of the major findings during the 'informal tutorials' was that students were perfectly capable of doing the mathematics but tended to founder on the apparent lack of connection between a highly academic subject and their major engineering occupations.

The combination of these factors suggested that small group (or even individual) tutorials were extremely effective but, obviously, expensive in terms of staff time and availability especially where classes were large. Self-paced courses were found to successfully replace the classic lecture/problem class structure but required an enormous amount of 'overhead' and commitment in the initial setting up.

University of the Witwatersrand

Regular teaching commitments at WITS included:

Technical Valuation, MINN306, 65 hours;

Reserve Valuation, MINN403, 65 hours;

Valuation Project, MINN451, supervision over five weeks October/November each year;

Statistical Valuation of Ore Reserves, MINN511, 30 hours;

Geostatistical Methods in Mineral Evaluation, MINN510, 30 hours;

Practical Implementation of Geostatistical Ore Evaluation Techniques, MINN572, 30 hours.

Operations Research in the Mining Industry, MINN 571, 30 hours (1990 only)

Four courses were offered on a regular basis through the Continuing Engineering Education division, usually titled: Statistical Reserve Valuation, Geostatistical Reserve Valuation, Practical Reserve Valuation and the compact course 'Zero to Kriging in 30 hours'. These courses attract up to 30 delegates at any given time.

The Master's program at WITS includes 6 month (18 point) dissertation/projects. In my nine years at wits, 16 such projects were successfully submitted under my supervision. Two MSc degrees by dissertation only have been awarded to students under my supervision. I supervised 6 PhD's, not all of which were followed through to completion.

Short Courses and Seminars

Short courses ranging from one to five days in duration have been given worldwide over the last eighteen years. These courses are variously hosted by academic institutions, by host consultancy companies or held in-house for particular companies. In the last ten years, courses have been held at:

University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa:

Statistical Reserve Valuation, Geostatistical Reserve Valuation and Practical Reserve Valuation --- run at least once a year 1990-1998;
Zero to Kriging in 30 hours and Practical Reserve Valuation --- run at least once a year 1992-1998.

Mackay School of Mines, University of Nevada/Reno: 5-day introductory geostatistics course and 3-day computer based course on applications --- January 1991, October 1992, January 1994, March 2002, January 2004, March 2005, April 2006.

Technical University of Košice, Czecho-slovakia; October 1990, 3-day introductory course, computer based.

Lynx Geosystems, Vancouver, Canada; January 1991, 5-day (morning only), in-house.

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; "Practical geostatistics and new directions", June 1991, 5-day introductory course, computer based.

Cluff Minerals Zimbabwe, Harare; September 1991, 2-day seminar (in-house).

Chevron Corporation, Denver, Colorado, January 1992, 5-day introductory course (in-house).

Soekor, Cape Town, RSA; February 1992, 5-day introductory course (in-house).

Rohm and Haas Corporation, Philadelphia PA, November 1992, 5-day introductory course (in-house).

Chevron Mineral Corp of Ireland, Dublin, December 1992, 5-day introductory course (in-house).

Open course, Perth Western Australia (hosted by Micromine), January 1995, Zero to Kriging in 30 hours.

Pancontinental Mining, Kalgoorlie Western Australia, February 1995, 5-day introductory course (in-house).

Lonrho Zimbabwe, Harare; October 1995, 5-day introductory course (in-house),

Stillwater Platinum Mine, Montana, USA, January 1996, 5-day introductory course (in-house).

Lonrho Zimbabwe, Harare; February 1997, 5-day introductory course (in-house).

JCI Geological Services, Johannesburg; Johannesburg, February 1997.

Digital Mining Services (Surpac), Johannesburg, March 1997, 5-day introductory course (Unix workstation based) and September 1998, 3 day course (PC based).

Orapa and Letlakhane Mines, Botswana, November 1997, 5-day introductory course (in-house).

Gold Fields of South Africa, in-house training courses, November 1999; August 2000.

International Groundwater Modelling Centre, Golden, Colorado, June 2001.

Otterbein College, Columbus, Ohio, June 2002 and 2003.

JNCC, Aberdeen, Scotland, January 2004

Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, February 2004

Auburn University, Alabama, May 2004

Gavia Ltd, London, January 2005

University of Florida at Gainesville, December 2005

JRS/IES Centre at Ispra, Northern Italy, October 2005

Mott MacDonald Geotechnical Engineers, London, November 2005

The courses at Mackay School of Mines, University of Nevada-Reno were generally held during appointment as 'adjunct professor'. Other visiting professorships include the Geology Dept, Syracuse University, New York (1976) and the Technical University of Copenhagen (1979).

Academic visits (including short seminars) have been paid to: Technical University of Košice (October 1991); Technical University of Wrocław, Poland (October 1991); Iowa State University, Ames (February 1992) and Kalgoorlie School of Mines, WA (January 1994). I had the privilege to chair the opening session of the 2-day SAIMM School on Valuation (June 1991) and to give a talk to the Operations Research Society of South Africa.

Invited talks and short seminars have been given at: College of St Mary and St John, Plymouth; Imperial College, London; North London Polytechnic; South Bank Polytechnic; UNISA; and at the Universities of Edinburgh, Reading, Southampton and Swansea.

In August of 1994, a two-day pre-conference seminar on "Spatial Statistics" was presented jointly with Dr Noel A.C. Cressie, Distinguished Professor of Statistics at the University of Iowa at Ames. There were 71 participants, all possessing at least a Master's level degree in Statistics. The seminar was sponsored by the American Statistical Association, prior to the Joint Statistical Meeting in Toronto, Canada.