Christopher Alfonso is a PhD student with the EarthByte Group at the University of Sydney. He is currently researching the use of spatio-temporal data mining to better understand the formation of major mineral deposits, as well as potential implications for mineral exploration. In 2020, as an Honours student, he investigated the primary controls on the evolution of Northeast Africa’s Nile River using Badlands landscape evolution models. As a research assistant with EarthByte, he helps contribute to the group’s plate tectonic reconstructions and assists with the development of the Model Atlas of the Earth (MATE).