Professor Claire Cote
Claire Cote
Director, Centre for Water in the Minerals Industry; and Group LeaderEnvironmental Excellence through the Mining Cycle, Sustainable Minerals Institute, UQ
Professor Côte has more than 20 years’ experience in environmental and water resources management for a range of sectors. She has held a number of roles in research and consulting engineering, before setting up the Centre for Water in the Minerals Industry with Prof Chris Moran. She has been working exclusively for the mining industry since then. She has engaged extensively with mining operations in Australia, Africa, Chile and Canada to address water and sustainability issues, documenting and implementing leading practices.
She has extensive industry experience as she worked for the Anglo American Metallurgical Coal Business unit from 2011 to 2018, where she provided technical expertise on environmental and water-related topics, including a range of water quality challenges, particularly in Canada. She designed and implemented the water strategy and supported a range of environmental compliance topics, such as the development of innovative software for tracking legal obligations. She also led novel approaches to improving mine closure planning and the management of final voids.
In her role at the Sustainable Minerals Institute, she is seeking to promote environmental excellence through the mining cycle, based on capacity building and targeted research programs on water and environmental management, closure planning and beneficial post-mining land uses that minimise residual risks. the development of very successful industry training programs and a significant number of publication and software outputs.