Professor Andy Fourie
Professor of Civil & Mining Engineering and Program Director – Future Tails
The University of Western Australia

Andy is a professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering at The University of Western Australia in Perth.
He has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, and a PhD from the Imperial College, University of London. He has worked at the University of Queensland and the University of the Witwatersrand. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Alberta, the Catholic University of Valparaiso in Chile and the University of Colorado in Boulder. His research is in the field of mitigating the impact of mining and municipal solid waste disposal. Outcomes from his research have been incorporated in changes to environmental legislation in South Africa. He contributed to a series of guidelines for managing mine tailings in Australia, as well as developing a document for the International Atomic Energy Association on barrier systems for retaining uranium mining waste.
Andy has been involved in many industry-focussed projects with current projects including An evaluation of tailings storage facilities monitoring technologies managed by AMIRA and funded by eight mining companies; Future Tails aimed at training, research and education to improve tailings management funded by BHP and Rio Tinto; and Evaluating potential static liquefaction of tailings to prevent failures, funded by six mining companies as well as the Australian Research Council. Andy is also currently a member of five international tailings review boards.