Dr Niloofar Karimian is Post-doctoral Research Fellow at CSIRO (mineral resources) and Monash university in Melbourne. She is an environmental geochemist, interested in applied and fundamental aspects of environmental geochemistry and mineralogy. Her research explores the multi-disciplinary links between mineralogy, geochemistry, and microbiology in controlling environmental mobility and speciation of a wide range of toxic metalloids, such as antimony, arsenic, and chromium, in soil-water systems. She is interested to explore how mineral formation and evolution over time affect the environmental behavior association and bioaccessibility of impurities and contaminants in the geo-environment using a wide range of advanced analytical techniques including state of art spectroscopy techniques such as synchrotron-based X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS). In her current role at CSIRO, she is carrying out innovative research to resolve the invisible phosphorus puzzle in iron ore which is a critical step in unlocking the economic potential and reducing the carbon intensity of iron ore processing.