(Biography from 1990) Alastair Sinclair obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geological engineering from the University of Toronto and his PhD in economic geology from the University of British Columbia. He briefly taught at the University of Washington and for many years at the University of British Columbia, where he was head of the Department of Geological Sciences from 1985 to 1990. His teaching career has spanned more than 40 years, involving courses in ore microscopy, economic geology, earth science data analysis and mineral resource estimation.

Throughout his career, he has maintained a close relationship with the minerals industry through joint research and consulting. He has been active on various committees for CIM and the APEGBC. He has authored or co-authored more than 200 scientific/technical papers and is an author of two books — Application of Probability Plots in Mineral Exploration and Applied Mineral Inventory Estimation (co-authored with Garth Blackwell). He has presented more than 40 short courses to industry, most recently on quality control of assay data and mineral resource estimation methods. Since leaving a fulltime academic career, Sinclair continues his work teaching part time, consulting and developing web-based short courses for the mining industry.