Rennie Kaunda (Prof.)

Assistant Professor Colorado School of Mines

Prof Rennie Kaunda is an Associate Professor at the Colorado School of Mines in the United States with over 15 years of experience in industry and academia. Prof Kaunda has worked closely with the mining industry and conducted several projects in several areas of mining geotechnics, rock mechanics, slope stability, computational and applied artificial neural networks and sustainability. Prof. Kaunda is also a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Colorado and has worked on more than 50 global projects throughout Africa, Asia, South America and North America. He holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from the University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, and a PhD degree from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has published or coauthored more than 50 peer-reviewed technical papers, conference proceedings, conference abstracts, and professional reports. He has also been actively involved in organizing and chairing national and international conferences, and short courses.

Prof Kaunda has also performed or coordinated consulting services related to health and safety, rock mechanics, machine learning and mining geotechnics in surface and underground mines and has been a recipient of several grants and awards from government and other organizations. His career goal is to make contributions to “green mines” of the future through advanced technologies and science. Mines and underground excavations of the future will focus on innovative rock excavation and ground control methods which stream-line their operations and processes as they strive to remain economical and good stewards of the environment, while pursuing scarcer resources in deeper, harsher and low-grade environments. His vision is to pursue this “triple-bottom line” approach through mentoring students to be responsible future leaders and good stewards of the environment.