UA SRP Promotes Sustainable Mining through UNAM@UA Collaboration
Sept. 25, 2015
The University of Arizona (UA) has established a partnership with the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Latin America’s largest university. The UNAM/UA collaboration recently celebrated the inauguration of the Center for Mexican Studies on the UA’s Tucson campus with a weekend of educational and cultural events.
Investigators from the UA Superfund Research Program (SRP) have long-standing relationships with collaborators at UNAM. Together with their Mexican colleagues, UA SRP Director Raina Maier and investigator Jim Field participated in a session entitled “Mineral Resources: From Exploration to Environmentally Sustainable Mining in the SW United States and NW Mexico.” Maier spoke about the Center for Environmentally Sustainable Mining, a UA SRP academic-industry partnership developed with the UA’S Lowell Institute for Mineral Resources (IMR). She also emphasized the importance of extending the work of CESM into partnerships with UNAM. Field spoke about his applied research using microorganisms to extract valuable metals from mining waste. Click here for more information on the sustainable mining event.
Maier and UNAM’s Elena Centeno, Director of Geology at UNAM, were the session organizers and were also invited to give a video interview for the Arizona Geological Society’s e-video news magazine, the Arizona Mining Review. The two spoke about the topic of sustainable mining, the role of the various university programs, including UA SRP and CESM, and the value of the UNAM/UA partnership. Click here to watch the video (their segment airs starting at 20:19).