Rudrajit Mitra is currently a Professor and Syd and Felicia Peng Professor in Mining Engineering at the Department of Mining Engineering & Management at South Dakota Mines. He is also currently the Interim Department Head. Previously, he was Head of Research at the Institute for Advanced Mining Technologies (AMT) at RWTH Aachen University. Prior to joining AMT, he was an Associate Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he still holds a visiting appointment. Before that, he was a Senior Lecturer at UNSW Australia. He was also the School Coordinator of the VR Lab and the Associate Director for the iCinema Research Centre, looking into research applications of VR to the mining industry. His area of expertise includes Rock Mechanics, Advanced Mining Technologies, Mining Systems, Mine Ventilation, Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (VR/AR), and Innovative Learning and Teaching. He is a member of SME (USA), AusIMM (Australia), SAIMM (South Africa), and Society of Mining Professors (SOMP).