Materials Science and Engineering – Extractive Metallurgy Overview

Fellow presentation and intro to your career path

My name is Peace Kim, and I am originally from South Korea. My curiosity and passion for metals naturally guided me to choose Materials Science and Engineering in university. Before I was 8, I had already collected various types of metals including iron (steel), copper, aluminum, zinc, tin, silver, gold and amazing titanium. Discovering that there were many types of different metals and alloy besides mundane stainless steel and aluminum soda cans as a small nerdy kid had ignited my “What I want to be” career engine. This engine allowed me to go through the tough jungle of STEM: It was not an easy journey, but I had focused on mathematics, physics and chemistry until I fell in love with them. Yes, it is possible to fall in love with them when you think it’s impossible.

But my true love was metal production. I went to Norway for graduate school (Materials Science and Engineering – focused on Extractive Metallurgy) because it was one of the countries with a renowned history of making metals and alloys. By this time, I was ready to indulge into the wonders of extractive metallurgy: This was the time where I learned to production ferrous and non-ferrous alloys with novel methods, and I was good at it. To be honest, after going through all that time with mathematics, physics and chemistry, I just couldn’t fail with extractive metallurgy but excel at it. Yes, it’s true that the more you hang out with fundamentals, the more you’ll easily fall in love with your area of interest and be good at it.

Now, I’m in pursuit of making the world a better place by applying my passion and skills to critical metals production. As a senior research scientist at a mining and metal production company, I am developing novel ways to produce critical metals without greenhouse gas emissions and hazardous waste. To accomplish this, I’ve set my goals to complete 5 patents pertaining to clean production of critical metals including titanium, zirconium and rare earth metals, which are crucial materials to cutting-edge technologies. I’m half done with this career pursuit and will keep on going: Passion for metals and STEM fundamentals are my fuel and engine which kept me going.

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‍Career options  (Extractive Metallurgy)

• ‍Materials Scientist/Engineer Metallurgist
  Extractive metallurgy is the practice of removing valuable metals from ores and refining the extracted raw metals into purer form.
  The field of extractive encompasses many specialty sub-disciplines, including mineral processing, hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy and electrometallurgy.
  This role depends on the field of specialty, but the work is usually laboratory based. Main responsibilities include planning and conducting experiments, extrapolate data to develop theories to explain phenomena, developing new metal products and ways of applying new methodology and etc.
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• ‍Product/Process Development Scientist/Engineer
  Focusing on the metal production process and the product to increase efficiency and optimize the performance of the process. This area includes identifying and developing new processes for metal production, and implementing process controls to ensure the metal products are of a high quality and produced in a way that can be consistent.
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• ‍Technical Sales Engineer
  Focusing on your sales skills in combination with your technical knowledge to provide advice and support on a range of metal products. This career will need some certain level of expertise. The emphasis of this role will depend on the level of technical knowledge needed to sell a particular metal product or service.

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Main hard skills you use on daily basis in your current job

1. Materials thermodynamics and kinetics
   The two most important tools for materials/metallurgy scientists and engineers. Thermodynamics will guide you to decide your chemistry, and kinetics will help you determine whether your chemistry or method would be practical. Excelling on both of these tools will help you see the whole picture.  
   Advanced courses are often taught in graduate schools and often mandatory for majors in chemistry and materials science.
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2. FactSage & HSC Chemistry (Chemical thermodynamics simulation software)
   These thermodynamics simulation software instantly calculates complex chemistry which helps you determine the feasibility of your proposed methods. Most of the materials designs are developed by using this software.  
   If your department happens to have this wonderful software, don’t miss a chance to learn about it. Look for short courses in your school as they are often open to faculty and staff for advertising.
   More info. on FactSage can be found here: www.factsage.com‍

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Soft skills you use on daily basis in your current job

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2. Project management skills
   The ability to accomplish your project from idea to completion. This skill can be gained via participation in a project which requires responsibilities. Personally, joining the military as a commissioned officer is a good opportunity to develop your management skills in general.
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3. Communication skills
   The ability to involve listening, speaking, observing and empathizing. From personal experience, communication gets much easier when you are comfortable with your area of expertise and have a good understanding of what others (colleagues) do. Take the time to be a professional in your work and study what your colleagues do. Otherwise, you are blind and deaf even with perfectly working eyes and ears: This leads to low quality communication.

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Your personal path‍

There was a difficult time when searching for jobs was not easy. Even with a doctorate degree and fancy resume, I was invisible to the industry. After experiencing so much failure to secure a job, I had realized that I was speaking the wrong language in a world I did not know much.

I was not aware of the “industrial language” when I was applying for jobs outside of school. As a student, I was familiar with the “academic language”, which was mostly about science and philosophy. The industrial language simply requires more than that: How is your outstanding work going to benefit us?

Looking back then, I remember I kept failing to impress the interviewers because I was busy explaining my work and not how it was going to be useful to them. Unfortunately, I’ve learned the hard way: It’s impressive what you have accomplished in school. But nobody really cares or much understands about the details of your academic endeavors. They want to know how your wonderful work can be a benefit to them.

Only after speaking the right language, which is the “industrial language”, I’ve became more visible to potential hirers. For example, I highlighted some parts of my work which can be potentially beneficial by increasing the efficiency of a current technology. I was pretty sure that the recruiter had less idea of my theory (including my work and methodologies), but they sure loved me. I was instantly hired as a senior researcher (considering my academic background and status) as my first industry job. Now, I’m a senior research scientist at another company, and the same method of using the industrial language to the recruiters also had worked.

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