The Cave Mining Forum community is built on a simple idea: people learn faster and solve harder problems when they learn together. Behind the discussions you see on the site is a small group of moderators and advisors who keep the conversation focused, useful, and respectful. This Advisory Board represents decades of caving experience across operations, consulting, research, and planning. They guide community standards, help surface timely topics, and support members who want to share lessons from the site or ask for feedback on complex design choices.
This post introduces the Advisory Board and explains what they do for you as a member. You will also find practical tips on how to engage with them and how their collective experience shapes the direction of CMF.
Why An Advisory Board Matters
Cave mining is collaborative by nature. Geotechnical engineers, mine planners, operators, and researchers must align on ground behaviour, sequencing, ventilation, and risk. Online, that kind of alignment does not happen by accident. A focused professional culture, clear moderation, and topic curation are essential. The Advisory Board provides that structure, by helping to set the bar for evidence‑based discussion, encouraging mentorship across experience levels, and promoting conversations that move from theory to practice.
If you are new to CMF, the Board’s job is not to gatekeep. Their role is to keep the space practical, to encourage participation from both senior professionals and early‑career members, and to make sure threads stay constructive and on topic. When a post needs more context, they often suggest resources or ask clarifying questions that invite better answers from the community.
How The Board Supports The Cave Mining Community
The Advisory Board contributes in five ways. First, topic curation, highlighting emerging issues in caving such as undercut strategy selection, dilution management, and seismic monitoring. Second, they contribute via moderation, enforcing community guidelines so technical threads remain respectful and traceable to real practice. Third, mentorship, inviting senior members to share what they wish they had known earlier in their careers and helping connect mentors and mentees. Fourth, knowledge linking, pointing members to relevant papers, case histories, and training material when questions arise. Lastly, community development, recruiting sponsors and partners who believe in open, professional exchange.
Advisory Board Profiles
You’ll find below a snapshot of each Board member’s background and how that experience shows up in the Cave Mining Forum community. Make sure to keep an eye out for their comments and posts in the Forum and to engage with them when you can!
Chris Chester, Principal Engineer, BHP Copper South Australia
Chris brings a deep geotechnical lens to mass mining. His current role with BHP’s CuSA Resource Engineering team focuses on large‑scale caving and the integration of ore body knowledge into design and planning. Before BHP, he led Orebody Knowledge for the Carrapateena Expansion Project at OZ Minerals, building the technical foundation that informed the block cave study.
Earlier in his career, Chris worked as a specialist geotechnical engineer at Newcrest’s Cadia Valley Operations, where he tackled caving‑related hazards and the day‑to‑day realities of operating a large cave. He also spent time in long‑hole open stoping in Western Australia and conducted research on remote geotechnical instrumentation in the UK coal industry. On CMF, you will find Chris leaning into threads that bridge geology, geotech, and scheduling, and encouraging members to connect isolated data points into a clear picture of cave performance.
Linda Snyman, Senior Operations Geotechnical Engineer, Evolution Northparkes Operations
Linda started with De Beers in South Africa, gaining exposure to front cave, block cave, sublevel open stoping, SLC, and open pit mines. Since moving to Australia in 2008, she has spent more than 14 years at Northparkes in a hands‑on operational geotechnical role. Her academic grounding includes geology, engineering geology, a postgraduate diploma in mining and geomechanics, and the South African Advanced Rock Mechanics Certificate.
Linda brings an operator’s sense of pace and accountability to every discussion. She is quick to ask for the details that matter on site, monitoring method, quality of input data, change management, and how the team closed the loop between observation and action. In mentorship threads she often highlights the value of learning the mine from the drawpoint up.
Nadim Chammas, Director of Brand Marketing and Community Strategy, Cave Mining Forum
Nadim complements the Board’s technical expertise with a community and communications focus. He has more than 15 years of experience in marketing and stakeholder engagement, including leadership roles at SRK Consulting where he helped elevate technical experts through clear, accessible storytelling. He brings that skill to CMF by shaping how the Forum showcases practitioner knowledge and by building partnerships that extend the reach of technical content.
On the platform, Nadim supports members who want to translate complex ideas into readable posts, turns event takeaways into practical summaries, and helps sponsors understand how their support advances open, professional exchange. For a wider view of the kind of industry outreach he champions, see SRK Consulting’s work in thought leadership and education at srk.com.
Sarah Webster, Principal Geotechnical Engineer, Caving, Evolution Mining
Sarah has more than 25 years of site‑based experience across caving, stoping, and open pit operations with Newcrest, Rio Tinto, and Gold Fields. She leads caving studies within Evolution Mining’s long‑term planning team and splits her time between Parkes, New South Wales, and Brisbane, Queensland. Her academic path includes a master’s in mining geomechanics from the Western Australian School of Mines, and she is currently pursuing a PhD at the Australian National University.
Sarah contributes to the wider profession as a Chartered Professional in Geomechanics, a committee member of the AusIMM Geomechanics Society, and a member of the Industry Advisory Board for the University of Chile’s International Caving Engineering Diploma. You will see her advocate for integrative thinking on CMF, linking monitoring, modelling, people, and technology to deliver value at site. For context on the Geomechanics Society’s role in professional standards, visit the AusIMM page for the society at ausimm.com.
Mark Tang, Senior Consultant, SRK
Mark is a Mining Engineer with over 11 years of consulting and operational experience in both underground and open-pit projects worldwide. He specializes in mine method selection, stope optimization, mine design, and strategic scheduling, contributing to various studies from scoping to feasibility levels.
Mark has supported NI 43-101 technical reporting and due diligence reviews, showcasing his strong proficiency in Deswik, NPVS, and other industry-standard software. Currently, he serves as a Senior Consultant at SRK Consulting and also draws on his hands-on operational experience gained from his roles at Goldcorp. Additionally, Mark is a licensed Professional Engineer in British Columbia.
Tony Da Silva, Principal Geotechnical Engineer, Long Term Planning
Tony’s portfolio spans a wide range of underground environments. He has worked in sub‑horizontal narrow vein gold and platinum mines in South Africa, in sub‑vertical zinc and nickel orebodies with open stoping, pastefill, and backfill, and in large copper operations that rely on backfill for stability and production continuity. In Western Australia he contributed to the establishment and exploration of sublevel cave operations, then to the implementation of a cave operation.
He has also completed feasibility work for both cave and sublevel cave options at a copper mine in New South Wales, and provided group‑level geotechnical input as part of a long‑term planning team. Throughout his career he has advised projects from concept through implementation, including shaft sinking design and delivery. On CMF, Tony brings a design‑to‑execution mindset, asking what will work at scale and what needs to be proven before a plan meets ground.
Jarek Jakubec, Founder, Cave Mining Forum, Corporate Consultant, SRK
Jarek founded CMF to give the caving community a central place to share knowledge and build a practical, open record of what works. He is a widely recognised consultant in cave mining and diamond deposits, with concept to feasibility experience on more than 160 projects in 34 countries. His work spans research, benchmarking, and operational support, and he has been an active voice for responsible, sustainable mining.
Jarek’s vision for CMF is simple: make access to caving knowledge easier, encourage discussion across company boundaries, and accelerate the development of the next generation of caving professionals. That vision shapes the Forum’s emphasis on mentorship, its open invitation to students, and its focus on practical, site‑ready insight.
What Moderation Looks Like In The Cave Mining Forum Community
What do the moderators actually do day-to-day? Most of the work is quiet and supportive. When a post does not have enough context to be answered well, a moderator will nudge for missing details, location, geotechnical conditions, stage of the mine, and what has already been tried. When a thread starts to drift away from the original question, a moderator will split the discussion so both lines of inquiry can continue with clarity. If a post crosses the line into promotion or speculation without evidence, the team steps in so the overall signal to noise ratio stays high.
Moderators also seed discussion. They invite members to react to new research, to share site photographs that illustrate a design choice, or to compare approaches across regions. After events, they link recordings, lessons learned, and references so the knowledge does not disappear when the conference lights go off.
The goal is not to speak for the community, it is to make it easier for the community to speak to itself.
How To Get The Most From CMF
If you want actionable feedback from senior practitioners, set up your thread so others can help you. Be specific about the problem you are trying to solve, the constraints you face, and what success would look like. Share the context you can share, while respecting confidentiality. If you are asking about research, link the paper and point to the excerpt or figure you are wrestling with.
Tagging a Board member is welcome when they have written or presented on your topic. Better still, ask a focused question that invites the wider community to weigh in. You will often hear from early‑career members who bring fresh tools and from senior engineers who know where the risk hides. When the conversation helps you move forward, close the loop with a brief summary of what you tried and what you learned. Those short debriefs are how CMF turns one person’s problem into a shared reference.
What This Means For Your Professional Growth
A strong forum gives you reach that used to require years of conference circuits. When you participate, people begin to recognize your name, not just as a title on a slide deck, but as a contributor who is curious, precise, and generous. If you are early in your career, that visibility creates momentum. If you are senior, it keeps you connected to new tools, emerging methods, and the next generation of colleagues.
The Board’s role is to keep that momentum going. They remove friction so good questions get good answers, they encourage members to share case histories with enough detail to be useful, and they remind the community that rigorous, civil dialogue raises the standard for everyone.
How This Advisory Board Is Different
Many professional communities rely on a small circle of academics or corporate leaders. CMF’s Board blends operational, planning, consulting, and communications talent. That mix reflects the reality of cave mining where design, monitoring, operations, and stakeholder engagement are linked. You will see that mix show up in curated topics, in the way research is translated into practice, and in the emphasis on people as well as models.
The Board also understands that members learn in different ways. Some prefer long technical threads. Others learn best from annotated photos, short videos, or checklists. CMF supports that variety because the goal is not a single perfect format, it is a shared understanding that helps people make better decisions underground.
Where To Learn More Outside The Forum
CMF thrives when members link to credible external sources. If you are looking for background material, you will find strong references at OneMine, the SME library, and AusIMM conference proceedings. You can also learn more about advisory members’ organizations at SRK Consulting, which publishes technical insights and at the AusIMM Geomechanics Society page. Bring what you find back to the Forum and open a thread that tests how those ideas travel from paper to practice.
How To Connect
If you want to reach the Board, start in the open. Post your question to the relevant space, tag the moderators if you need help placing it, and let the community respond. If a side conversation would help, move it to direct messages with the participants’ consent, then consider returning to the thread with a short public summary. That balance respects privacy while preserving learning for others.
If you are interested in supporting the Forum as a sponsor, or if your company wants to collaborate on an educational session, reach out through the site contact form. Sponsor support helps CMF keep student access affordable, maintain the platform, and commission resources that the community asks for.
Final Thoughts
The Advisory Board is here to serve the Cave Mining Forum community. They set the tone, keep the space professional, and help turn individual experience into shared knowledge. As CMF grows, the Board will continue to expand its circles, inviting more voices from more regions and roles. Your participation, your questions, and your willingness to share what you have learned are what make the Forum work.
If you are ready to engage, explore the spaces, introduce yourself, and join a thread that matches your interests. If you want a quick primer on building momentum inside CMF, start with The Power of Networking and How Students and New Professionals Can Leverage the Cave Mining Forum. Then add your voice. The Board is listening, and the wider community is ready to learn with you.
