Dr.

Gabriel S (Essie) Esterhuzen is a mining engineer with a PhD from the

University of Pretoria, South Africa. He started his career in rock engineering in
the South African gold mines in 1975 where he was involved in rock engineering for
higly stressed, rock-bursting ground. His career includes reserarch and teaching in
Mining Enineeringat the University of Petoria, full time consulting with SRK
Consulting in South Africa and later in Denver, Colorado. Essie has spent the last
fourteen years at the NIOSH Pittsburg Mining Research Division where he has been
involved in ground control research for underground limestone and coal mines. His
professional interest has been to bridge the gab between academic knowledge and the
practical implementation of rock engineering at mines site. Over his career he has
developed rock engineering solutions for operating mines around the worls,
including deep and highly stressed tabular deposits block cave mines, open pit
slopes, pillar design for limestone mines, and ground support design for
underground coal and hard-rock mines.

Dr. Ihsan (Berk) Tulu is a mining enfineer with a PhD, from the West Virginia
University. He joined WVU's Department of Mining Engineering as an Assistant
Professor in August, 2017. He received his B.S. in Mining Engineering form the
Midle East Technical University in Turkey, and his M.S. in Mining Engineering from
WVU. He joined the ground control branch of the Pittsburgh Mining Research Division
on NIOSH in 2012. There he was responsible for the development of improved design
procedures for global and local stability of underground coal mines. As an
associate service fellow at NIOS, Berk had a chance to meet and work with coal
miners and mine engineers from many deifferent coal regions of USA. His primary
research interests are in rock mechanics and ground control. In this field, his
theoretical and applied reserach work addresses problems in geomechanical modeling,
pilar stability and support design.