Assoc. Prof. Mohan Yellishetty is an Australian Endeavour Fellow and Chartered Mining Engineer with an established teaching and research profile in the field of mining and environmental engineering. He possesses more than two decades of promising research and an altruistic academic career in Australia, the USA and India, which enabled him to develop a broad skills base in all aspects of the mining cycle. He has been involved with mining education for nearly three decades and has conducted a fair amount of research in this discipline. His research and academic work experience at Monash University and CSIRO, Australia, Yale University, USA and IIT Bombay, India have provided him with the opportunity to undertake high-quality research work and contribute significantly to the mining engineering discipline and publish widely in reputed high-impact journals. He has career publications of ~45 journal papers and book chapters and ~40 international conference papers and presentations. His career H-index of 18 (Scopus).

A/Prof Yellishetty has been recognized as one of the leading experts in the area of ‘Sustainable Mineral Resources’ and ‘Life Cycle Assessment’. A/Prof Yellishetty has very strong teaching and research interests in the following areas:

• Resources Trinity: Mine rehabilitation and closure, Mine Tailings and wastes and Critical minerals
• Sustainability frameworks/tools and their application to the mining industry.
• Industrial ecology, life cycle thinking, substance flow and material flow analysis.
• Critical and strategic mineral supply chains and assessment

A/Prof Yellishetty has been working with several international mining companies, universities and research organizations. This has directly led to a number of MoUs / contract research agreements/projects between Monash University and others.

A/Prof Yellishetty’s research has positively influenced both public policy and industrial practice. His major disciplinary public service contributions include:

• Testifying on “Critical Minerals’ Supply Chains” to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Australia
• Contributing to the report released by the Minister for Resources, Senator the Honourable Matt Canavan, entitled “Critical Minerals in Australia”
• Testifying on “Mine Rehabilitation” to the Australian Senate Standing Committees on Environment
• Participated in a Round Table discussion regarding the Australia-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement‘, with Hon. Tony Abbott former Prime Minister of Australia was the special guest. I have made several recommendations for the early harvest agreement and the comprehensive FTA due in 2022.
• Submitted recommendations to the Public consultation questions for the consultation Draft Declared Mine Regulations 2022 and RIS for public consultation by Engage Victoria.
• Jointly led and conducted series of workshops in 2021 (comprising four sessions) in association with the Australia India Chamber of Commerce (AICC), MinterEllison, and with the support of the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade). The objective was to bring together stakeholders from government, industry, corporate, and research sectors across the regions, to work through the opportunities and the challenges involved in building a resilient and diversified supply chain for critical minerals.  A report summarising the ideas and recommendations has been developed with a view to its next steps, Supply chain solutions for critical minerals – Insight – MinterEllison.

His teaching philosophy combines a solid theoretical background backed by real-world examples, through the integration of field-based, project-based and hands-on learning experiences for his students. He pioneered the use of a variety of pedagogical practices, such as developing an industry-centric curriculum and industry-based learning to achieve effective teaching-learning outcomes that not only contributed to the strong student engagement but have prepared the students for employment within the Australian and the global mining industry. His teaching and research are mutually informing, complementary and inseparable. He strongly believes that excellence in teaching involves constantly re-evaluating what and how he is teaching, and continually striving for the most creative and effective methods to maximize student learning and student success.

A/Prof Yellishetty made significant contributions to setting up Mining Engineering (now Resources Engineering) program at Monash University. As the founding academic, he not only taught and coordinated a significant number of units (~9 units) in the initial years of the offering but made sure that that the program received the provisional (2013) and full (2018) accreditation with commendation from the Engineers' Australia.

A/Prof Yellishetty’s research group has done pioneering work in creating world’s first agent-based dynamic criticality model. A/Prof Yellishetty and his international research team have created an Australian-first geospatial database of all known active and inactive hard rock mine sites across the country.

A/Prof Yellishetty co-founded the Critical Minerals Consortium at Monash University in 2020 with aim to improve our understanding of minerals criticality and to provide advice, ideas and expertise to assist policy makers.

A/Prof Yellishetty’s research achievements were covered by more than three dozen media outlets in Australia and overseas, including ABC, ABC radio, The Australian Mining, Quarry, etc.