It is with sadness that we announce the death of Dr. Peter Winterburn. Peter was killed on Friday, June 21, 11:45 am local time, in Valparaiso Chile, the victim of an attempted robbery. He was 57 years old.
Peter was a compelling force within MDRU as the NSERC/Bureau Veritas Minerals Executive Industrial Research Chair in Exploration Geochemistry. He was appointed in 2014 and held the position for five years. Before that, he worked for over 17 years in the minerals industry... for AngloAmerican and then Vale. While at UBC, he implemented a widely recognized and successful research program in exploration geochemistry, he contributed to student and industry training, graduated five MSc students and was mentoring four other MSc candidates towards completion. His research identified mechanisms and controls on elemental transport through cover and developed strategies and techniques for their use. The knowledge and methods had impact as they were quickly picked up and applied by industry. He tested and evaluated numerous techniques and most recently worked on pioneering efforts in the application of genomic methods in mineral exploration.
He left UBC at the end of January 2019, to return to Vale, based in Santiago, Chile. We are all deeply sadden by his tragic death.