Mine Ventilation, Environment, Safety, and Health

Ashish R. Kumar is an assistant professor of energy and mineral engineering and Thomas V. and Jean C. Falkie Mining Engineering Faculty Fellow in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). He obtained his undergraduate degree at Indian School of Mines and his doctorate at the University of Kentucky. He also served as a mining engineering faculty member at Missouri University of Science and Technology. He teaches courses in mine systems engineering, energy systems automation, and combustion at Penn State. He researches thermal runaway of batteries through high-fidelity models and deep learning algorithms to analyze transient-state combustion events. He has three years of industry experience in a supercritical greenfield captive thermal power project and is a registered professional engineer in Kentucky. He chaired the 20th North American Mine Ventilation Symposium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2025 and co-edited the proceedings.

Shimin Liu is a Professor of Energy and Mineral Engineering and Professor of Mining Engineering at Penn State University and he holds Ph.D. degree in Engineering Sciences from Southern Illinois University. His research interests include health and safety, coalbed methane, carbon sequestration, geomechanics, and flow of fluids in porous media. As PI, he has successfully secured funding from various US federal agencies, including US Department of Energy, US National Science Foundation, CDC-NIOSH, Alpha Foundation, SME Foundation and industrial partners. He is editor-in-chief for International Journal of Coal Science and Technology.

Sekhar Bhattacharyya is an associate teaching professor of mining engineering in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State. He has over thirty years of experience in key positions in academia and industry. He teaches introduction to mining engineering, underground mining, and capstone senior design project. He served as the Penn State mining engineering program chair from 2019 to 2022 and successfully led it through the ABET accreditation process. He has led several federally funded research programs in underground mine health and safety. He is a licensed professional engineer in Utah and holds foreman's certifications in the states of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Dr. Bhattacharyya served as the co-chair and co-editor of the proceedings of the 20th North American Mine Ventilation Symposium.