Developing a Career in Economic Geology

Angela Santos Costa

Centre for Ore Deposit and Earth Science (CODES)

Angela is a Ph.D. 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.

Axel Cima

Centre for Ore Deposit and Earth Science (CODES)

Axel is an Argentine-Italian geologist who studied Geology in University of Córdoba, Argentina. He is currently a Ph.D. 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.

Jan Schulz-Isenbeck

Anglo American West Tethyan Discovery

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.

Poliana Vidal Salgado

Centre for Ore Deposit and Earth Science (CODES)

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.

Victor Torres Pacheco

Anglo American Central Andes

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.