The title of Honorary Visiting Researcher is bestowed on particular visitors to the Parker Centre in recognition of their outstanding and continuing contributions to the collaborative culture and research activities of the Centre.

Associate Professor André Laplante
The inaugural holder of the title, appointed during 2001-2002, was Associate Professor André Laplante from McGill University in Canada. Associate Professor Laplante was an internationally recognised expert in gravity methods for recovering gold from its ores.

Professor Laplante’s relationship with the Parker Centre began in 1999 when he led a workshop on gravity gold recovery as part of the Centre’s Gold Processing Week in Darwin. He subsequently joined the AMIRA P420B “Gold Processing Technology” project team when this project started in April 2001. During his regular visits to the Centre, he participated in surveys of gravity circuits at gold mines in Australia, South Africa and Tanzania and run four further gravity gold workshops.

He was also a key member of the collaborative research team for the AMIRA P420C “Gold Processing Technology" project which commenced in March 2005.

Professor Laplante's appointment as a Parker Centre Honorary Visiting Researcher was renewed in early 2005 for another three years. However, Professor Laplante passed away unexpectedly in early March 2006.

Vale Gravity Man (March 2006)
Gravity Man Returns (July 2005 update on Professor Laplante's relationship with the Parker Centre)
Collaboration with Gravity Man Yields Gold (article about Professor Laplante's relationship with the Parker Centre)

Dr Peter Lye
In August 2003, another Honorary Visiting Researcher was appointed: Dr Peter Lye from the School of Biological, Biomedical & Molecular Sciences at the University of New England in Armidale, NSW.

Dr Lye’s broad area of research interest is the study of solution chemistry with particular emphasis on the reaction kinetics and thermodynamics of environmentally and/or industrially important systems.

Dr Lye was a member of the Parker Centre from 1998 until December 2002 when he left to take up a position as a chemistry lecturer at the University of New England. Dr Lye initially joined the Centre to work on the AMIRA P497A “Cyanide Waste Management” project which ran from 1998 to 2000. He then became a member of the AMIRA P420B “Gold Processing Technology” project team, and was predominantly involved in research for the Cyanide and the Environment module of this project.

Dr Lye has maintained research links with the Centre. He contributed to research undertaken by the AMIRA P420B project on cyanide disposal and management and the modelling of cyanide tailings until this project finished in June 2004.