The UP College of Engineering extends its greetings to Dr. Djoan Kate Tungpalan, the recently conferred Associate Dean for Student Affairs (UPD COE ADSA)!
Dr. Djoan Kate Tungpalan is a metallurgist and Associate Professor at the UP Department of Mining, Metallurgical, and Materials Engineering. She specializes in ore characterization, process mineralogy, and geometallurgy. Dr. Tungpalan completed her PhD in 2016, at The University of Queensland’s Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (JKMRC), where she focussed on investigating the key textural drivers to separation performance of a variable and complex copper porphyry deposit. Dr. Tungpalan has been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at W.H. Bryan Mining & Geology Research Centre, working on developing research on geometallurgy and drill-core scale texture analysis.
Her research was primarily focused on small-scale mining in the Philippines. Dr. Tungpalan was involved in the establishment and deployment of a mercury and cyanide-free process of recovering gold that significantly benefitted the small-scale mining communities. She is part of the team of the recently-recognized CLINN-GEM (Community-Led Integrated Non-Cyanide Non-Mercury Gold Extraction Method), the recipient of the 2021 Gawad Tsanselor para sa Natatanging Programang Pang-Ekstensiyon.