Diana Arbelaez Ruiz (diana.arbelaez@uef.fi)
I study the social and political dimensions of resource extraction to inform dialogue, and policy- and decision-making. My interests include the dynamics of raw materials for the energy transition, conflict and peacebuilding in mining regions, and indigenous rights and activism in natural resource extraction contexts. I have more than 20 years’ combined experience in the areas of development, social responsibility, peace and conflict studies, and sustainability, with a strong emphasis on the extractive sector.
At UEF, I am examining the geopolitical and socio-environmental aspects of energy transition minerals from a global perspective. My previous posting was as Senior Research Fellow in the Sustainable Minerals Institute’s Development Minerals Program, where I oversaw the establishment of an online knowledge exchange network for ASM miners and quarry workers – the Delve Exchange. My doctoral thesis dealt with Indigenous community participation in post-conflict mineral resource governance in Colombia. As part of this, I was a Visiting Endeavour Fellow at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Subsequently, I was a Rotary Peace Fellow at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. I held Research Fellow and Research Manager roles at the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland, where I worked on a broad suit of topics focusing on Latin American and Australian sites. I have been a consultant to NGOs and mining companies providing specialist knowledge and advisory services in connection to mining and development projects.
Lyydia Meuronen (lyydia.meuronen@uef.fi)
I’m working as a first year’s doctoral researcher at the Computational Physics and Inverse Problems research group at the UEF. In my thesis I’m working with machine learning based surrogate modeling for risk assessment and water quality prediction at mining sites. Waste rocks at the mining sites cause an environmental problem as leaching releases acid and harmful substances from the rocks which contains elevated level of heavy metals and at atmospheric conditions chemically reactive minerals. Current models for leaching are computationally expensive which is why we are intending to replace those models with computationally cheaper models while utilizing machine learning.
In my thesis work I’m using models and measurements related to my study provided by my collaborator Geological Survey of Finland (GTK).
Tuija Mononen (tuija.mononen@uef.fi)
I work as a senior researcher in environmental policy, and I have a title of docent in University of Lapland (sustainable natural resources policy). I have been involved in agri-food research in social sciences since 1994 and mining research since 2009, and I am a head of CEMMS (Research center for Mining, Minerals, and Society). My academic interest covers food issues (especially development, meanings and actors of organic production), food policy, food security, rural research and actor networks. In mining research my interests cover societal issues of mining industry, community experiences and impacts of mining, activism, social movements, actor-networks, green transition, CRMs, and environmental justice.
I was a chair of the Finnish Society for Rural Researchers and Developers in 2008-2013, member of Finnish Rural Policy Committee in 2008-2011, member of National Rural Network in 2012-2013, and the member of the board of Finnish Society for Social Scientific Environmental research in 2014-2015.
I have been a member of Scientific Committee of Nordic conferences for Rural research since 2011 and a representative of Northern Europe in International Sociological Association’s RC 40 (Sociology of Food and Agriculture) in 2017-20.
In addition to refereed articles and edited books, I have also written numerous popular texts and given interviews in national media. I am familiar with food, rural and mining research networks globally.