MetSoc Doctoral Scholarship Award
Purpose of the scholarship
The purpose of the MetSoc Doctoral Student Scholarship is to encourage and support the attainment of educational goals by doctoral students who have demonstrated a high level of research achievement at a Canadian university.
Atefeh Azizitorghabeh, Queen’s University
Atefeh Azizitorghabeh is a Ph.D. candidate at the Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining at Queen’s University, Canada. Atefeh completed her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Materials engineering and extractive metallurgy, respectively, from the University of Tehran. She has a background in the fields of solvent extraction and zero-waste process focused on selective metal recovery from secondary resources.
Currently, at Queen’s, she is a member of the Hydrometallurgy and Environment group under the supervision of Dr. Ahmad Ghahreman; and her research focuses on developing a cost-effective technique with minimum toxicity for gold extraction from low-grade gold ore using microorganisms and an environmentally friendlier reagent. Aside from her main Ph.D. research, she is involved in another investigation about gold solvent extraction from thiosulfate solution using ionic liquids as safe and highly efficient reagents for metal purification. Recently she has contributed authorship (as a first author) on a chapter on methods and technologies for recycling batteries for a Springer handbook. Atefeh’s publications and conference papers are listed in her Google scholar account. She is an Ian Drum 2021 Scholarship recipient and Pickles family scholarship 2021. In her civic engagement, she is the marketing director at Queen’s GMCA; and is responsible for its social media. Recently at QUIC international photo contest 2022, her photo was Instagram’s people’s choice winner.
MetSoc Sustainability Scholarship
Purpose of the scholarship
MetSoc’s Sustainability Section is passionately committed to creating a more sustainable global metallurgical and materials industry. The scholarship aims to encourage graduate studies in technical and environmental areas in the metallurgical and materials industry (i.e., research focused on the development of environmental practices and standards).
Fariborz Faraji, Queen’s University
Fariborz is a PhD candidate at the Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining at Queen’s University. Fariborz has a multidisciplinary background in the fields of materials and metallurgy, mining and resource management, chemistry, and biochemistry. At Queen’s in the Environmental and Hydrometallurgy group, his research focus is on the development of sustainable processes for metal production. Application of bacteria for gold recovery from low-grade resources, recycling of metals from electronic waste and spent lithium-ion batteries, valorisation of mineralogical waste, copper recovery from refractory resources by using ozonation and ultrasound, application of ionic liquids as safe and highly efficient reagents for metal purification, and synthesizing and utilization of deep eutectic solvents for metal recovery are some examples of Fariborz diverse research activities. All the activities are reflected in Fariborz board list of publications and presentations. In addition to the MetSoc 2022 Sustainability Scholarship Award, Fariborz has won other prestigious awards as well. MetSoc Student Doctoral Scholarship Award in 2021, Ontario Trillium Scholarship (OTS), and Gordon Bell Fellowship in Transformative Mining are examples of the top aspired awards offered in Canada, the province of Ontario, and the department of mining.