Professor Ismet Canbulat

Prof. Ismet Canbulat is a mining engineer with over 30 years of experience in research, consultancy, management, on-site and academia. He has BSc, MSc and PhD degrees from Istanbul Technical University, the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Pretoria, respectively. In South Africa, he worked for the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) as a Research Area Manager in Rock Engineering Programme. After ten years in research, he moved to consultancy and worked for Groundwork Consulting and later for Strata Engineering (currently Golder Associates) in Australia as a Principal Engineer. In 2008, Ismet joined Anglo American in Brisbane, where he was the Group Geotechnical Engineer until November 2014. He was responsible for leading the development of geotechnical engineering standards, procedures and best practices; supporting operations in mine design and green field projects at concept, pre-feasibility and feasibility levels; providing technical support for business risk management; technical support for design and selection of mining equipment as well as the implementation of new technologies and research findings at operations. Since 2014, Ismet has been Professor, Head of School and Kenneth Finlay Chair of Rock Mechanics at the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, UNSW Sydney.

Ismet’s principal research interests and expertise lie in rock mechanics theory and application, ground control and rock mass classification, design of pillar and ground support systems, and numerical modelling, in addition to other areas in mining engineering, including mine design, layout selection and geotechnical impact assessment, advanced monitoring, risk management and advanced risk-based design and evaluation, mine closure and subsidence assessment.

Ismet is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia and the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and a member of the Australian Geomechanics Society, International Society for Rock Mechanics, Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration.

Ismet is an author and co-author of numerous technical papers published in refereed journals and conference proceedings, peer-reviewed research reports submitted to funding organisations in Australia and South Africa, and consultancy reports submitted to over 60 underground and open pit mines.

Ismet is a recipient of several international and national awards, including the SME’s Syd S. Peng Ground Control Award, the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy Gold Medal, and BBUGS’ Geotechnical Practitioner of the Year Award.