kai koosmen

Kai Koosmen is a Principal Geotechnical Engineer at PSM with over 17 years of experience. The majority of his work is focused on the design, operation and risk management for open pit mining operations, waste rock dumps and tailings storage facilities. 

Kai commenced his career working in mine operations and study-based roles with a major mining house, joining PSM in 2016 following completion of his PhD research. Kai has worked on numerous mining and quarrying projects across multiple commodities of varying geological and technical complexity. He currently serves as an external geotechnical advisor to several large open-pit mines in Australia and has also worked on a number of major international projects in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Southeast Asia and South America. These roles have included deployments into site-based operations teams and participation in major design studies. 

Kai has a keen interest in soil and rock mechanics, particularly the extrapolation of observed laboratory testing behaviour to full-scale engineering problems. He also enjoys working in active mining environments, where he has the opportunity to use geological observations and monitoring data to refine geotechnical models and interpret slope, dump and embankment performance.

Kai is an active contributor to professional development within the industry. He is a regular author and co-author of conference papers on various topics, has supervised several theses in soil and rock mechanics from undergraduate to PhD level, and guest lectures at the University of Queensland.

Kai is a member of the Australian Geomechanics Society (AGS), the Mine Subsidence Technological Society (MSTS) and AUSIMM, and holds RPEQ status with the BPEQ. 

Kai's fields of special competence include:

• Soils and rock mechanics and hydrogeology applied to slope design
• Laboratory testing
• Geotechnical model development
• Mine design and mine operations
• Slope stability analysis
• Geotechnical monitoring
• Management of slope instability
• Waste rock dumps