Dr. Barry Wills (centre) receives the award from Prof. Eric Forssberg of Sweden, with Profs Roe-Huan Yoon (USA), Juan Yianatos (Chile) and Cyril O’Connor looking on
At a glittering Awards Dinner in Santiago, Dr. Barry Wills, of MEI, was the recipient of one of the minerals industry’s highest awards, The Distinguished Service Award of the International Mineral Processing Council (IMPC). This special honour is awarded very occasionally, to persons who have over a sustained period made distinguished and noteworthy contributions to the field of Mineral Processing. Dr. Wills is only the the 3rd ever recipient of this award, which was presented in 2008 to an American Professor and to a French Professor in 2010. Of all the major IMPC awards presented since the inaugural ceremony in 1995, Dr. Wills is the first recipient from the UK.
The citation for the Award read Dr. Wills, an alumnus of Leeds University, has contributed to the mineral processing community in several capacities. His main quest during his long career has been to promote the distribution and dissemination of mineral processing engineering knowledge within the community of mineral processors worldwide. During his career Dr. Wills has served the mineral processing community and obtained results, which merits him for the Distinguished Service Award of IMPC.
After gaining industrial experience in Zambia and in UK, he devoted 22 years to teaching mineral processing students at Camborne School of Mines, in Cornwall, UK. From his needs as a lecturer grew a seminal and successful book “Mineral processing Technology” in 1979. It has become a “household” book world over and is currently on its 7th edition. Its impacts on the discipline have been profound.
The next step in his quest for knowledge distribution was the foundation of the peer-reviewed journal Mineral Engineering in 1988. The journal has come to be known for its quality of papers and promptness of its editor. He continues to serve as its editor-in-chief.
Dr. Wills then created a very successful conference series in 1991. By concentrating on narrow fields of subjects aimed for specialists, but by creating a continuum from them, he has been able to create a model that has gained a widespread popularity. The conferences have also proven to be very successful in networking people from young graduates to distinguished professors.
In 1999 Dr. Wills took his ideas of knowledge distribution to the internet by creating, along with his daughter Amanda, MEI Online, now a respected and well-known source of data and information.
Within MEI Online Dr. Wills himself contributes actively in creating discussion topics and writing an interesting blog.
Dr. Wills’ achievements in disseminating mineral processing knowledge and information are extraordinary. With his efforts many results and ideas have been disseminated efficiently.
Dr. Wills is a senior partner with Falmouth-based MEI (Minerals Engineering International), a family business with his wife Barbara, daughter Dr. Amanda Wills and son Jon.