Vassilios Kazakidis

Biography

Dr. Kazakidis is a tenured Associate Professor with B.Sc, MASc and PhD degrees in Mining Engineering. He has been with the School of Engineering at Laurentian University since January 2001. Prior to that, for a ten-year period, he was the director of Dias Engineering Inc., based in Sudbury, Ontario, where he gained extensive experience in engineering design and decision analysis in dealing with mineral resource development projects, as well as management of applied industrial research projects. He worked on consulting and industrial research assignments in Canada and overseas dealing with underground mine design, mining geomechanics, production system analysis, production simulation, economic impact of ground-related problems, and the impact of mining community relations on feasibility studies. As part of his work assignments, Dr. Kazakidis interacted with all levels of a mining company, both at the operating and corporate levels, from the miner at the face of a heading to the president level of a corporation. This particular experience forms the basis for the courses Dr. Kazakidis teaches in the areas of mine feasibility, mine economics, design risk management of mining systems, underground mining methods and engineering economics.

Research Interest

Current research interests focus on close collaboration with the local mining industry and lie in the areas of flexible mining systems, rapid development, quality control, decision analysis, underground mine planning, frozen backfill design, risk management in mine feasibility, and mining community relations. Sources of research funding include the mining industry, NSERC (Discovery and CRD) and Laurentian University.