Technical Advisor, Economic Geology
Murray Hitzman serves as Technical Advisor at KoBold Metals. He is Professor (emeritus) in the School of Earth Sciences, University College Dublin and former Director of the Research Ireland Centre for Applied Geosciences (iCRAG). Hitzman has B.A. degrees in anthropology and geology from Dartmouth College, an M.S. in geology from University of Washington, and a Ph.D. in geology from Stanford University. He started his career after his PhD with Chevron Resources undertaking mineral exploration worldwide and is credited with the discovery of the Lisheen Zn-Pb-Ag deposit in Ireland (1990). He moved to Washington, D.C. in the mid-1990’s to work as a Fellow in the US Senate and then as a policy analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology. He then moved to Colorado School of Mines as the Charles Fogarty Professor of Economic Geology and initiated a still continuing research project in the Central African Copperbelt (DRC, Zambia) as well as advising on mineral deposits around the globe. In 2016 he returned to government serving as Associate Director for Energy and Minerals at the U.S. Geological Survey. He moved to Ireland to take up a Science Foundation Ireland professorship in 2018. Hitzman received the SEG’s Penrose Gold Medal in 2026 for his contributions to the earth sciences. He has served on the boards of a number of mineral exploration companies.