Keynote Speakers

June 10 AM Keynote Speaker:

Mr. Jim Cooney, Professor of Practice in Global Governance, Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University, Canada

Jim Cooney has over forty years of experience related to international mining.  In 1995 he was the first person in the mining industry to advocate the integration of sustainable development with mining company policies and practices, and, in 1997, his company, Placer Dome, became the first mining company to adopt a strategy and program of sustainable development.

Jim played an active role in the Global Mining Initiative and the Mining, Minerals, and Sustainable Development project (MMSD) from 1999 to 2002;  the World Bank’s Extractive Industry’s review from 2002 to 2004; the Canadian government’s National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility and the Canadian Extractive Sector in Developing Countries from 2006 to 2007; and the global consultations leading to the adoption by the United Nations, in 2011, of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.  In the late 1990s he introduced the concept of “the social license to operate” for exploration and mining projects, and is a leading authority on the subject.

Following his retirement from the mining industry in 2006, Jim assumed various responsibilities at several academic and not-for-profit institutions:

In his role as a Professor of Practice at McGill University, Jim has taught seminars and conducted research related to the intersection of state, corporate and community governance in the prevention of conflict and achievement of sustainable development in the extractive sector.

Jim is an Adjunct Professor at the Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering, at UBC, where he has played a role in establishing the Canadian International Resources and Development Institute, of which he is chair of the Advisory Council.  He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Beedie School of Business, and a Senior Associate of the Responsible Minerals Sector Initiative, at Simon Fraser University, where he has been a convener of multi-partite international dialogues on mining and social responsibility.

June 10 PM Keynote Speaker:

Dr. Cynthia J. Atman, Director of the Centre for Engineering Learning & Teaching, University of Washington, United States

Cynthia J. Atman is the founding director of the Center for Engineering Learning & Teaching (CELT), a professor in Human Centered Design & Engineering, and the holder of the Mitchell T. & Lella Blanche Bowie Endowed Chair at the University of Washington. Dr. Atman is also co-director of the Consortium to Promote Reflection in Engineering Education (CPREE), that is funded by the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. She was director of the NSF-funded Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE), a national research center that was funded from 2003-2010.

Dr. Atman conducts research on design expertise, undergraduate engineering teaching and learning of design processes and the use of reflection to enhance engineering learning.  Specifically, her focus is to help engineering students learn to understand and incorporate issues of context as they engage in problem scoping.  She and colleagues have authored over 120 archival publications in these areas. Dr. Atman is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) and she holds a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.

June 12 PM Keynote Speaker:

Dr. Karel F. Mulder, Project Leader of the Education for Sustainable Development Project, Delft University of Technology 

Dr.  Mulder became a faculty member at Delft in 1992 where he works in the Department of Technology Dynamics and Sustainable Development, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management.  In 1994 he founded the Technology and Society department of the Netherlands Royal Institute of Engineers and served as its first president until 1999.  Since 1998 Dr. Mulder has been project leader of the Education for Sustainable Development project.  In 2002 he initiated the first EESD conference and has been instrumental in the success of the EESD conference series.   In addition to his work at Delft, Dr. Mulder lectures at various universities world-wide, and cooperates with several Sustainable Development units at Technical Universities throughout Europe.  He is the author of “Sustainable Development for Engineers” (Greenleaf Publishers) which is available in both English and Spanish.  He is also the author of several papers relating to the role of technology, technological innovation, and technological education in sustainable development.

Dr. Mulder completed a Masters Thesis on the topic of dynamics and controversies regarding technology in 1987, and a Ph.D. on corporate decision making within research and development projects in 1992.  His Ph. D. thesis analyzed the role of technology networks in decision-making in industrial research.