Prof. Dr. Ata Akcil is a registered mining engineer with more than 30 years of experience in mineral processing and extractive metallurgy engineering, research, teaching, and consulting. Currently, he holds a position as a full professor and is working at the School of Mining and Geosciences (SMG), Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan. He held a full-professor position in 2010 at SDU, Turkey. He is also a senior expert for critical and strategic raw materials and resource recovery, and he is globally experienced and trained in mineral processing and hydrometallurgy. He has authored or co-authored numerous papers and presentations (200 peer-reviewed and 75 proceedings) with 12,000 citations and 49 h-index (Google Scholar, 2024). He has directed research for more than 60 graduate students and postdocs. He has taught mineral processing, mining and environment, extractive metallurgy, critical raw materials, and university courses for the past years. He is active in reputed journals as an associate editor and editorial board member (International Journal of Mining Science and Technology; Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration-SME; Waste Management; Hydrometallurgy). He has been an adjunct professor at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology since September 2023. He has received 25 awards and honors in his research areas.