Dr Bjorn von der Heyden completed his Ph.D. in geology at Stellenbosch University in 2013 and subsequently spent two years working as a geologist in the South African minerals sector for Exxaro Resources Ltd. He gained excellent exposures and experiences at Arnot underground coal mine, Grootegeluk open cast coal mine, the Research and Development Unit (Mineralogy section), and the Mayoko iron ore exploration project in the Republic of Congo.

In 2015, he returned to academia appointed as a lecturer in Economic Geology at Stellenbosch University (SU). He has worked on a number of research projects, both nationally and internationally (Namibia, Malawi, Tanzania), and has published on a wide variety of ore commodities including gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt, zinc, manganese, iron, and lithium-bearing pegmatites. He has developed fluid-inclusion microthermometry capabilities, currently housed at the Department of Earth Sciences at Stellenbosch University.

In 2020 he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Economic Geology. Dr von der Heyden was elected as a fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists in 2021 and starting from 2022 he fulfilled a position of co-Chair for the African Rainbow Minerals Chair in Geometallurgy. In this role, he places equal emphasis on generating and publishing exciting new science, and on providing high-quality education to the next generation of African earth scientists and geometallurgists.