Dr Karin Soldenhoff holds a BSc (Hons) from WITS, South Africa, MSc from the University of Cape Town and a PhD (Chemical Engineering) from UNSW.

She is employed at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) as a Principal Consultant in the ANSTO Minerals Business Unit, which she co-founded in 2004. In her current role, she provides oversight and broad technical direction for research and commercially sponsored projects in hydrometallurgical process development with a special emphasis in advanced separation technologies such as ion exchange and solvent extraction.

Over a 40 year career Karin has led numerous projects regarding various aspects of hydrometallurgical processing of uranium, base metals, and critical metals including rare earths, zirconium, niobium, hafnium, lithium and scandium. The work has resulted in authorship and co-authorship of some 160 technical commercial-in-confidence reports, as well as 64 journal publications, patents and conference papers and presentations in the last 10 years.

Karin is a Member of the Australian Committee ISO/TC298, charged with the development of standards applicable to the rare earth industry.

She currently leads the collaborative ANSTO/CSIRO/Geoscience Australia project “Accelerating Development of Australia’s Rare Earth Resources”, funded by a A$13.9M grant run under the auspices of the Australian Critical Minerals R&D Hub (2024)

Karin was the recipient of the 2024 NSW Women in Mining Award -Exceptional Woman in Technological Innovation and named a finalist in the BHP Women in Resources National Awards.