Dr. John Burba is a physical chemist and a world-renowned pioneer in lithium and other mineral extraction technologies. His more than 40-year career features a number of lithium brine projects in North and South America, notably with Dow Chemical Co., FMC Corp., and Chemtura Corp. Most recently, Dr. Burba served as CEO of Simbol materials, a company focused on the recovery of lithium from geothermal brines in Southern California. Under his leadership, Simbol successfully developed a proprietary process capable of producing low-cost, high-purity lithium products from brines that were previously believed to be too high in contaminants to be economically processed. Dr. Burba also recently served as CTO and Executive VP of Molycorp Inc., where he was instrumental in identifying and developing numerous rare earths technologies as part for the Project Phoenix re-development of the Mountain Pass facilities. Dr. Burba received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and completed doctoral studies in Physical Chemistry at Baylor University. He now serves as the founder and CEO of International Battery Metals.