The first keynote lecture will be given by Prof. James Finch, Emeritus Professor of McGill University, Canada. Entitled "A Mineral Processor’s Journey" it will be an appreciation of the life and work of Prof. Graeme Jameson, of the University of Newcastle, Australia, who has attended all but one of the MEI flotation series.

Jim retired from the Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, as the Gerald G Hatch Professor Emeritus in Mining and Metallurgical Engineering in 2014. First appointed in 1973, he was promoted to Professor in 1985 and served as Chair from 1988 to 1991. He has held a succession of NSERC Chair awards since 1991. He has co-authored over 350 articles and two books, Column Flotation (1991) and Wills' Mineral Processing Technology Edition 8 (2016), and supervised over 100 post-graduate students.

He has received the Gaudin Award from SME, the Alcan Award, Silver Medal, and Innovation Award from MetSoc/CIM, and from NSERC in 2008, as team leader, the Leo Derikx Synergy Award for Innovation. A conference in his honour was held in Sudbury, 2009 and he was elected to the Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Canada in 2002.