Corale L. Brierley is principal and founder of Brierley Consultancy LLC (1991–present), which provides technical and business consultation to the mining and chemical industries and government agencies. Previously, she was chief of environmental process development for Newmont Mining Corporation (1990–91), general partner at VistaTech Partnership Ltd. (1988–99), president of Advanced Mineral Technologies, Inc. (1982–88), chemical microbiologist at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (1971–82), and microbiologist with Martin-Marietta Corp. (1968–69). Her interests are in biotechnology applied to mine production and market and business development in this technical area.

Dr. Brierley was elected to the NAE in 1999 for her innovations applying biotechnology to mine production and remediation. She served as NAE councillor (2009–14) and was elected vice president in 2014. She chaired the Audit Committee and the Earth Resources Engineering Section, and served on the Membership Policy Committee, Nominating Committee, Committee on Membership, Earth Resources Engineering Peer Committee, and Grainger Challenge Prize and Russ Prize Committees. She chaired the NRC Board on Earth Sciences and Resources, the congressionally mandated Committee on Coal Research, Technology and Resource Assessments to Inform Energy Policy; the Committee on Review of the US Geological Survey’s Mineral Resources Program; and the Pre- and Postdoctoral Engineering Panels for the Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowships Program. Other Academies service includes the Committee on the Superfund Site Assessment and Remediation in the Coeur d’Alene River Basin; Panel on Technologies for the Mining Industries; and committees on Novel Approaches to the Management of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Energy Systems, on Ground Water Recharge in Surface-Mined Areas, and on Research Programs of the US Bureau of Mines. In addition, she has served on two division review committees at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the International Advisory Committee for the Biohydrometallurgy Symposia (1983–2013), and the editorial boards for Elsevier’s Hydrometallurgy journal since 1996 and Minerals Engineering since 2014.

Dr. Brierley is a member of the Society of Mining Engineers of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, and has received the AIME’s James Douglas Gold Medal for distinguished achievement in nonferrous metallurgy (2008) and SME’s Milton E. Wadsworth Award (2011), which recognizes distinguished contributions advancing understanding of the science and technology of nonferrous chemical metallurgy. She and her husband, James Brierley (NAE), jointly received in 2014 the American Mining Hall of Fame Medal of Merit Award for their scientific partnership with parallel achievements in academia and in business development. Dr. Brierley received the 2018 President’s Medal from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology for representing her alma mater as a cutting-edge scientist, innovator, and leader.

She received a BS in biology (1968) and MS in chemistry (1971) from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, and a PhD in environmental sciences from the University of Texas at Dallas in 1982.