Clarkson Kamurai
Payne Institute Critical Minerals Program Manager and Research Associate

Clarkson Kamurai is a Critical Minerals Program Manager and Research Associate for the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines. A mining engineer with over 18 years of experience, he holds a keen interest in Mining Process Continual Improvement tracking and energy metal developments, decarbonisation and circularity especially in the energy materials space.

Clarkson’s experience in these areas is drawn from exposure to numerous projects across much of Sub-Saharan Africa and South America. He is currently enrolled in the Energy and Mineral Economics Division at the Colorado School of Mines and about to start his PhD studies related to critical minerals supply chain, an area he has a deep passion for.

Since 2020, Clarkson has served in the capacity of Technical Director for an Oil and Gas company diversifying into hard rock mining responsible for implementation of the mineral resources development strategy.

From 2015 to 2019, he carried out independent consultancy work during which time he worked with a roaster of prior clients: private juniors and institutional. His work entailed working on various mining projects within and outside of Southern Africa.

From 2011 to 2014, Clarkson served as Country Director of a junior resource development company based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He oversaw the development of acquisition strategies of mineral assets in the Sub-Sahara region among a number of other tasks.

He also spent time on secondment to operations of the Chilean state owned mining company, CODELCO. Clarkson worked with the Anglo American Technical Services looking at research in the area of future technologies for deep level mining.

Clarkson holds a BSC (HONS) in Mining Engineering from the University of Zimbabwe School of Mining and Metallurgy, an MSC in Mining Engineering from the School of Mining Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and a Postgraduate Diploma in Mineral Financial Evaluation from the Wits Business School and Imperial College London. He is also a current member of the Southern Africa Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM) and the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME).