UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS INSTITUTE FOR GEOPHYSICS - Key Persons
Interests: image reconstruction through deep learning, full-waveform inversion (FWI), nonlinear optimization, shear wave elastography, least-squares migration (LSM).
Aiden studied Geotechnical Engineering at MIT. He studied the effect of salt concentration on the compressibility of soils such as Gulf of Mexico mudrock and Boston Blue Clay. This work helped develop a geomechanical model for mudrocks that will better allow us to predict compaction behavior, pore pressure, and borehole stability at geologic stresses.
Interests: flow and transport in porous media, geomechanics, methane hydrates, fractured rocks
Alejandro received his Ph.D. and M.Sc. from KAUST, and his B.S. from Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He explores the scientific foundations and engineering implications of geomaterials and subsurface processes with an emphasis on the energy sector. His research has centered on gas hydrate-bearing sediments, permeability estimation methods, coupled hydromechanical processes in fractured rocks, and emergent capillary effects in dual-porosity systems. These developments have combined novel experimental devices, protocols, and numerical methods to advance the understanding of physical processes in porous media.
Alice Turner is an earthquake seismologist. Her research focuses on using seismic observations to understand the mechanics of earthquakes, both on the Earth and on other planets. During her PhD at the University of Oxford, Alice studied the mechanics of repeating earthquakes (earthquakes that happen repeatedly in the same location) on the Earth and on the Moon. At UTIG, Alice will continue to work on planetary seismicity. She aims to better understand the stresses that cause seismicity on other planets, which will help to improve our knowledge of their interior and evolution.
Interests: earthquake source properties, earthquake rupture dynamics, observational seismology, planetary seismology
Amanda has been a member of UT GeoFluids since 2016. She has a bachelors degree in civil engineering from MIT and her masters in civil engineering (with a focus on geotechnical) from Tufts University. Amanda currently works for GEI Consultants, Inc. in Boston, MA.
Amy's work involved laboratory experiments on resedimented Boston Blue Clay and includes flexible wall constant head tests as well as constant rate of strain (CRS) tests. Cubic specimens are used to allow multidirectional testing on a single specimen in the constant head device.
Andrew's work focused on the process of venting and associated hydrate formation at deepwater vents in the Gulf of Mexico. After completing his MS, he joined the marine geology and geophysics research group at the University of Tromsø in Norway as a Fulbright scholar.
Job Titles:
- Senior Program Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Research Engineering / Scientist Professional
Job Titles:
- Graduate Student, Tufts University
Anthony Joseph Hanley completed his M.S degree in 2017. He has a great interest in all aspects of Geotechnical Engineering. Anthony completed a study on the yield surface of RGoM-EI Mudrock at 1MPa for his masters thesis. He is currently working for Ward and Burke Construction Ltd.
Athma's current research aims to advance our understanding of deformation and fluid flow behavior in sediments and rocks. He develops novel laboratory measurement techniques and interpretation methods.
Baiyuan joined UT GeoFluids group in the fall of 2010 after earning her B.S. in resource exploration engineering from China University of Petroleum. She is currently a postdoc research fellow in both UT-Geofluids and AGL groups. She earned her Master and Ph.D. degrees in geoscience at UT-Austin. Her research interests are predictive modeling, geomechanics, and pore pressure prediction. She has a granted US patent based on the pressure prediction technique she developed.
Job Titles:
- Administrative Services Officer I
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant Professor
Benjamin Keisling is interested in what archives of the past can teach us about the future. Benjamin's research focuses on how ice sheets, particularly in Greenland and Antarctica, responded to past changes in climate. He is particularly interested in understanding the mechanisms that were involved in ice-sheet change in the past, in order to better understand how those same processes will impact ice-sheet change in the future. Benjamin integrates numerical ice-sheet and climate models with marine and terrestrial geologic archives to advance our understanding of ice-sheet change. He is also interested in the history of geoscience and geoscience education, and how targeted interventions can advance justice and equity in geoscience over the next half-century.
Interests: past climate, ice sheet dynamics, justice in geoscience
Brendan studied geotechnical engineering at MIT. He completed his PhD in 2014. Brendan's research focused on high stress one-dimensional consolidation and undrained shear behavior of cohesive soil.
Brian studied Geotechnical Engineering at MIT. He completed his S.M in 2014. He spent 5 years working with a civil engineering contractor specialising in the construction of microtunnels and caissons.
Interests: tectonics, basin analysis, sediment provenance
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Interests: petrophysics, methane hydrates, resedimentation, carbon capture and sequestration
Job Titles:
- Program Manager
- Project Manager, GeoFluids Consortium ( UT Austin )
- Science / Technology Program Manager
Carla is our hydrate science program manager providing technical and strategic input, reporting, technical writing, and general project management support for UT GOM2, UT Hydrate Production Properties project and other sponsored hydrate activities associated with the Flemings group. Carla has a PhD in Analytical Sciences from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. She spent 10 years in semiconductor fabrication research and seven years as a project manager for the UT Advanced Energy Consortium
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant Professor
Chas Bolton has a dual appointment at UTIG and the Bureau of Economic Geology.
Chas's research interests lie at the intersection of experimental rock mechanics and observational seismology. In general, he is interested in unraveling the physical processes that modulate changes in seismicity during the pre-, co-, and post-seismic stages of the seismic cycle. He is also interested in understanding the connection between pore-fluids and earthquake rupture. Furthermore, he is interested in developing techniques that enable laboratory measurements of fault zone processes and seismic activity to be scaled up to tectonic fault zones. Chas is the lead P.I. of the earthquake rupture laboratory at UTIG which houses a large 1-meter direct shear machine and is designed to study how earthquake start, propagate, and arrest.
Christopher Gerekos research interests range from understanding radar scattering from random rough surfaces to designing novel radar instrument concepts for space or airborne platforms. While a Ph.D. student at the University of Trento (Italy), he devised a coherent radar sounding simulator that is able to treat complex three-dimensional terrains with multiple subsurface layers much faster than state-of-the-art finite elements methods. He is also interested in clutter discrimination techniques, the mathematical modeling of natural planetary surfaces, and the possibility of using signals of opportunity from astrophysical objects to perform passive radar sounding.
Interests: scattering of electromagnetic waves from rough random surface, mathematical modeling of natural surfaces, computational electromagnetics, Martian and Europan radar science
Job Titles:
- Communications Coordinator
- Communications Specialist
Interests: impact cratering, radiogenic and stable isotope geochemistry, paleoecology
Interests: continental margins, seismic stratigraphy, sedimentary geology
Job Titles:
- Research Engineering / Scientist Associate
Dallas Sherman's work focuses on the application of marine electromagnetic methods, both magnetotelluric (MT) with ocean bottom receivers and controlled source (CSEM) with towed systems. Her current research goals are to build upon her dissertation work by using EM methods to further understand the dynamics of permafrost and its associated gas hydrate. Of specific interest is the release of methane gas from subsea permafrost and thermokarst lakes located in the Arctic. Her years in industry broadened her horizons to include a variety of terrestrial geophysical techniques and created an interest in geophysical applications to mineral exploration and geotechnical engineering.
Interests: application of marine electromagnetic methods to exploration, offshore groundwater reservoirs, degradation of subsea arctic permafrost, noise in marine MT data and stability of MT transfer functions, integration of seismic and EM data sets.
Daniel's research focuses on developing and applying new techniques to analyze large seismic datasets in order to better understand earthquake rupture processes and their links to earthquake hazards. He is broadly interested in leveraging concepts from big data and scientific machine learning to advance earthquake science. Since 2022, Trugman has been the Assistant Professor, at the Nevada Seismological Laboratory, University of Nevada Reno.
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant Professor
Danielle Touma studies how climate variability and human activity impact the characteristics of extreme climate events, specifically extreme fire weather and extreme precipitation. She uses observational datasets and large ensemble GCM simulations to quantify changes and underlying uncertainties of extreme climate events and compounding events under a warming climate.
Interests: extreme climate events, climate variability and change, climate impacts
David joined UT Geofluids in 2019. He graduated from UT-Austin with a BS in Geophysics and completed an undergraduate thesis. He is currently pursuing a master's degree with Dr. Flemings with a focus on coupling geomechanical models with seismic analysis for prediction of pressure and state of stress in the subsurface.
Job Titles:
- Director & Scott Petty Jr. Endowed Chair / Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Interests: active tectonics, fault/sediment mechanics, geohydrology
Deniz joined UT GeoFluids in September 2015, working with Dr. Germaine. She is a graduate of Bogazici University/Turkey with a Master's degree. As a PhD student she studied compressional and shear waves propagating through clays/mudrocks, with a focus on elasticity and anisotropy behavior. She developed the technologies required for anisotropy testing in medium pressure triaxial setup, as well as high pressure velocity measurements under constant rate of strain loading condition. Deniz graduated with a PhD degree from Tufts in August 2020, accepting a strategy consulting position at LEK Consulting in Boston.
Derek studied sedimentation, deformation, and fluid flow on continental margins. Upon completion of his PhD, Derek, joined the Operations Geology group of ExxonMobil in Houston, Texas.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Research Scientist
Job Titles:
- Member of the Technical and Administrative Staff
- Research Engineering / Scientist Associate
Donnie provided engineering support in the UT GeoFluids lab from 2011 to 2013. He left to manage the Rock Mechanics Laboratory in the Bureau of Economic Geology but has since returned to UT GeoFluids (see Staff tab).
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant Professor
Doug Hemingway has worked in both the space industry and planetary science research. As a space industry professional, he specialized in robotic servicing for the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope, then later served as Chief Scientist for Civil Space at Maxar Technologies. His research career began at UC Santa Cruz and was followed by research positions at UC Berkeley's Miller Institute, at the Carnegie Institution for Science, and finally at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics where he is a research assistant professor.
Hemingway's research interests concern the processes that drive the evolution and behavior of planetary bodies and understanding the source of planetary diversity seen across the solar system and beyond. His research primarily involves geophysical modeling, with constraints coming in large part from spacecraft-based observations, especially relating to gravitational and magnetic fields. He works on problems related to magnetism, gravity, topography, elasticity/flexure/fracturing, heat production/transfer, and fluid dynamics.
Interests: geophysical modeling, icy moons, planetary magnetism, space weathering
Dr. Elizabeth Spiers' research interests are in quantifying and constraining the dynamic habitability of ocean worlds in our solar system, such as Jupiter's moon, Europa, and Saturn's moon, Enceladus. She uses system models to examine global-scale energy and chemical changes within these oceans over time. Spiers' work will improve understanding of the interior composition of ocean worlds informing and providing constraints for future missions, such as NASA's Europa Clipper which will launch in October 2024. She has been on several planetary mission and instrument development projects, with an emphasis on life detection strategies for ocean worlds.
Interests
Ocean worlds, planetary habitability, mass transfer, systems modeling.
Job Titles:
- Research Associate Professor
Interests: radioglaciology, airborne geophysics and planetary geophysics
Interests: earthquake dynamic ruptures and cycles, numerical modeling, parallel computing, fault geometric complexity, ground motion simulation
Job Titles:
- Graduate Student Seeking PhD, Tufts University
Emre joined GeoFluids in 2020. He graduated from Middle East Technical University (Ankara, Turkey) with a BS in Civil Engineering in 2017. He then received his MS degree with a geotechnical engineering focus in 2019 from the same university. He is currently pursuing PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University under the supervision of Dr. Germaine
Enze Zhang is interested in glacier mass balance, the variation of glacier terminus, and deep learning applications. At UTIG, he is working with Ginny Catania and Daniel Trugman to develop a deep-learning-based method to automate the delineation of glacier termini from remote sensing imagery over the entirety of Greenland. The dataset derived from the method would shed light on the controlling factors of terminus variations and help to better understand ice-ocean interactions. He is also interested in expanding the application of deep learning technology to broader fields such as extracting additional glacial features and mapping earthquake evolution caused by human activities.
Interests: glacier dynamics, ice-ocean interaction, remote sensing, deep learning
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant Professor
Eric's research focuses on dynamic Earth processes associated with marine geohazards and resources spanning from the upper mantle to the ultra-shallow crust. He is singularly interested in lithosphere-biosphere feedback loop interactions. Eric's group at OCEEMlab uses primarily passive (MT) and active (CSEM) marine electromagnetic techniques, which they integrate with seismic reflection and tomography, gravity, magnetic, and oceanographic data to study complex oceanic lithosphere mechanisms.
Interests: lithosphere-biosphere interactions, hot-spot plume dynamics, toroidal mantle flow, oceanic transform faults, fluid flow in hydrate systems, subsea CO 2, seafloor minerals
Interests: seafloor geodesy, tectonics, slow slip, and coastal oceanography
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Program Coordinator
From 2019 to 2022, Felicia was our GeoFluids project manager supporting reporting, member communications, staff and student presentations, contracting, the annual meeting, and various other technical and logistical tasks. She is now senior business analyst at UT Austin's Facilities Planning and Management department.
Job Titles:
- Graduate Research Assistant
Interests: Seismic interpretation, well log analysis, oil and gas
Job Titles:
- Member of the Technical and Administrative Staff
- Senior Administrative Program Coordinator, Flemings Research Group
Job Titles:
- Research Scientist Emeritus
- SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST EMERITUS
Frederick investigates vertical crustal motions in the forearcs of southwestern Pacific convergent margins. He is using uplifted corals and microatolls, GPS measurements, and seismology to investigate the relationships between plate motion, interplate slip, and both shorter- and longer-term temporary and "permanent" accumulation of vertical deformation. He also continues to participate in coral-based paleoclimate studies.
Interests: marine geophysics, ocean bottom seismometer, marine seismology
Gang Luo's primary research interest was computational geodynamics and finite element modeling on stress within and around salt, fluid flow, fault interactions, earthquake stress triggering, crustal/lithospheric stress and strain evolution during earthquake cycles. He became a professor at School of Earth Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and a professor in Key Laboratory of Computational Geodynamics, Chinese Academy of Sciences following his work with UT.
Job Titles:
- Graduate Student Seeking PhD, Tufts University
George joined UT GeoFluids in 2020. He worked in Japan as a geological consultant after receiving a BA from Carleton College in Geology. He is now pursuing a MS/PhD in civil and environmental engineering at Tufts University with Dr. Germaine.
Job Titles:
- Graduate Student Seeking PhD, the University of Texas at Austin
Graciela joined UT GeoFluids in 2022. Her research focuses on subduction megathrust modeling by computing models of large-strain evolution of subduction systems, discrete faults and porous fluid flow along faults. She has a bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Costa Rica and is currently pursuing her MS/PhD in Geology at UT Austin under the supervision of Dr. Nikolinakou.
Job Titles:
- Director, Texas Space Grant Consortium
- Program Manager, Texas Space Grant Consortium
Job Titles:
- Research Scientist Associate V
Heather served as the database manager from 1998-2008 and helped the original Penn State GeoFluids team transition to the University of Texas. Although she didn't move with the team to Austin, she still occasionally consults when a major software upgrade is required.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Research Scientist
Interests: stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, sequence stratigraphy
Hilary's thesis focused on consolidation characteristics of mass transport complexes in the Ursa Region. Upon completion of her MS, she joined ExxonMobil as an Operations Geologist.
Interests: tectonics, structure, continental margins
Ian is interested in the long term evolution of the Earth, tectonic processes, and the tectonics evolution of Antarctica. Ian recently went to sea as Chief Scientist on a cruise designed to further understanding of the central and eastern Scotia Sea and of the South Georgia microcontinent at the eastern end of the North Scotia Ridge. Ian is also involved in the United States part of the Polar Observing Network that seeks to better understand the dynamics and future of the Antarctic ice sheet.
Interests: Earth history, tectonics, Antarctic geology
Job Titles:
- Research Campus
- Research Campus, 10100 Burnet Rd, Austin, TX 78758
- Research Campus, Bldg. 196
Interests: Seismic Stratigraphy, Sequence Stratigraphy, Basin Analysis, Marine Geology, and Petroleum Geology
Interests: geophysics, ice-ocean interactions, subglacial hydrological and geological controls on ice sheet stability
Jana majored in Geotechnical Engineering. With UT GeoFluids she conducted research in the use of Bender Elements to propagate waves through soil specimens and accurately determine the soil's properties under different confining stresses.
MIT Thesis: The study of shear and logitudinal velocity measurements of sands and cohesive soils
Jason C. Sanford is an M.S. recipient at the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. His M.S. work focused on the geologic record of the Chicxulub asteroid impact in the Gulf of Mexico (with the Gulf Basin Depositional Synthesis Project) and the geomechanics of reservoir-scale sand injectites in the Panoche Hills of central California (with UT GeoFluids). Jason now works at Chevron as an exploration earth scientist in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Jason obtained his B.A. in geology and Spanish at Middlebury College and is a native of Dallas, Texas.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Technical and Administrative Staff
- Senior Project Manager
Job Titles:
- Senior Grants & Contracts Specialist
Jessica contributed to UT GeoFluids during her time as an undergraduate in the MIT Soils Lab under Dr. Germaine. Using Jana's Bender Element technique, she studied the acoustic wave transmission rates of sand specimens.
Job Titles:
- Graduate Research Assistant
Interests: sedimentology, sequence stratigraphy, geochronology
Job Titles:
- Marine Geophysicist
- POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW
Jingxuan Wei is a marine geophysicist who uses active source seismic imaging to study both the physical processes of the water column and the evolution of the solid earth. While a Ph.D. student at Texas A&M University, he used seismic oceanography techniques to observe the properties and variability of submesoscale (<10 km) to mesoscale oceanic processes within the South Atlantic Ocean. At UTIG, he is working with Dr. Sean Gulick and Dr. John Goff on near-shore sedimentary processes and seismic imaging of Chicxulub impact structure.
Interests: marine geology and geophysics, active-source seismology, physical oceanography, coastal processes
Job Titles:
- Senior Administrative Associate
Job Titles:
- Leader
- Co - Director of the GeoFluids Consortium ( Tufts )
- Co - Director of UT GeoFluids Consortium
John "Jack" Germaine is a world leader in experimental methods in geotechnical analysis. In recent years Jack has worked on small-strain nonlinearity of normally consolidated clay and has explored factors affecting the initial stiffness of cohesive soils. Jack is a professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University and holds a research affiliate appointment at MIT.
John employs swath sonar mapping and high-resolution reflectivity imaging to investigate morphology of the seafloor, its pattern of acoustic reflectivity, and shallow stratigraphy. His research interests are focused on sedimentary processes and structures in coastal and continental shelf settings, with recent efforts dedicated to understanding the impacts of hurricanes, tsunamis, and glaciers on the near-shore sedimentary processes.
Interests: seafloor mapping, coastal processes, geostatistics
Job Titles:
- Visiting Research / Scholar
Interests: marine geology and geophysics, sedimentation processes, hydrocarbon exploration
Job Titles:
- Analyst
- Software Developer
- Technical Support Staff Member
Job Titles:
- Program Director
- Research Professor
John leads the Gulf Basin Depositional Synthesis Project (GBDS), an industry-supported research project that assembles and synthesizes well, seismic, and other data to establish a basin-scale depositional history of the Gulf of Mexico. His work focuses on Mesozoic & Cenozoic depositional systems, source-to-sink sand transport processes, and supersequence architecture. Seismic, well log, and biostratigraphic analyses allow us to address important scientific questions for this basin.
Interests: sequence stratigraphy, basin analysis, reservoir connectivity, process sedimentology
Job Titles:
- Member of the Technical and Administrative Staff
- RESEARCH SCIENCE ASSOCIATE V
- Research Scientist Associate V
Josh joined UTIG in May of 2016. His primary area of responsibility is the management of the UT GeoFluids methane hydrates research and the Pressure Core Center. His background is in mechanical and aerospace engineering research at West Virginia University with specializations in the maintenance and repair of laboratory and mechanical equipment as well as fabrication, materials, and construction of experiments.
Job Titles:
- Research Associate Professor
Jud seeks to understand how externally-forced and internally-driven changes affect the earth's climate. He uses paleoclimate archives to help evaluate both current climate trends and climate models, which are used to project future changes. Jud focuses on producing long records of hydroclimate using speleothems, corals, and forams from the tropics as well as quantifying the uncertainty of climate reconstructions and then comparing the paleoclimate data to climate model output.
Interests: paleoclimate, data-model comparisons, tropical climate
Julia's research focused on compression and flow behavior of mudrocks. As a PhD student and postdoctoral fellow in the UT GeoFluids group, she studied the effect of mineralogy and particle size on porosity, compressibility, permeability, and microstructure under geologic stresses. She used various mudrocks such as the Boston Blue Clay, Gulf of Mexico mudrock, and Nankai mudrock. Her work has implications in e.g. pore pressure predictions, seal capacity, and tight gas shales. Julia earned her Ph.D. in Geosciences from The University of Texas in 2011. Upon completion of her postdoctoral fellow position at UT in February 2013, she joined the Department of Geophysics at Stanford University as a postdoctoral researcher.
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant Professor
Interests: gas hydrates, hydrogeology, fluid flow and transport
Job Titles:
- Research Associate Professor
Interests: planetary interiors, fluid dynamics, magnetohydrodynamics
Job Titles:
- Undergraduate Research Assistant
Interests: planetary geophysics, planetary surface processes, seismology, airborne geophysics.
Interests: tectonics, crustal deformation, earthquakes
Job Titles:
- Research Scientist Emeritus
Interests: plate tectonics, marine geophysics, polar regions
Liam joined UT GeoFluids in 2019. He graduated in 2018 from the University of Oxford obtaining a Master's degree in Engineering Science. He pursued an MS in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University. His research was guided by Dr. Germaine with a focus on exploring the yield surface of Gulf of Mexico Mudrock at stresses up to 100 MPa.
Job Titles:
- Research Scientist Associate V
Interests: flow and deformation of Earth's materials, tectonics of plate boundaries, computational methods for lithospheric deformation
Mahdi earned his PhD in Civil-Geotechnical Engineering from UT at Austin in 2013 and his MSc degrees from SUT and UT, Iran. He specializes in reservoir geomechanics, finite element modeling, and mathematical modeling of geomaterials behavior. His current research focuses on the estimation of the stress and pore pressure fields in sediments near salt bodies.
Job Titles:
- Research Engineering / Scientist Professional
Job Titles:
- Research Engineering / Scientist Professional
Job Titles:
- Civil / Geotechnical Engineer
- Lead Scientist, GeoFluids Consortium ( UT Austin )
Maria is a Civil/Geotechnical Engineer. She earned her ScD from MIT in 2008, her MSc from MIT and her Diploma from NTUA, Greece. She specializes in theoretical soil mechanics and the constitutive modeling of earth materials. She is interested in understanding the stress state and pore pressure in salt systems. Before joining the Bureau, Maria worked as a postdoc for Shell in the Depleted Drilling Group.
Interests: geomechanics, salt tectonics, pore pressure, stress state, numerical modeling, subduction zones
Maria is a Civil/Geotechnical Engineer. She earned her ScD from MIT in 2008, her MSc from MIT and her Diploma from NTUA, Greece. She specializes in theoretical soil mechanics and the constitutive modeling of earth materials. She is interested in understanding the stress state and pore pressure in salt systems. Before joining the Bureau, Maria worked as a postdoc for Shell in the Depleted Drilling Group.
Job Titles:
- Analyst
- Senior Software Developer
- Software Developer
- Technical Support Staff Member
Job Titles:
- Graduate Student Seeking PhD, Tufts University
Mark joined UT Geofluids in Fall of 2016 while pursuing a MS in Civil and Environmental Engineering specializing in Geo-systems Engineering at Tufts University. He has continued with GeoFluids while pursuing a Ph.D. in Geo-systems Engineering with Dr. Germaine. Mark has a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Massachusetts, and is a Senior Engineer at Haley & Aldrich, Inc. in Boston.
Michael studied core-scale gas transport experiments and the numerical modeling of gas transport in fractured gas shales. His interests included geomechanics, reservoir engineering, unconventional resource plays, and rowing. He completed his degree in December 2014 and accepted a full-time geologist position with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation in The Woodlands, TX.
Interests: clastic sedimentology, marine geology, reservoir connectivity
Michael's research focused on characterizing the pressure and stress at the Mad Dog field that lies directly below an allochthonous salt sheet along the Sigsbee Escarpment in deepwater Gulf of Mexico. He used logging data, direct pressure measurements, and drilling records to understand how the reservoir is segmented and how to predict pore pressure across the field. Upon completion of his M.S., he joined Conocophillips in Houston, TX.
Job Titles:
- Research Affiliate / Research Fellow
Interests: tectonics, plate reconstruction, paleomagnetism, geodynamics, machine learning, remote sensing
Interests: electromagnetic methods in applied geophysics, forward modeling methods, inversion methods, software development
Job Titles:
- Professor and Jackson Chair in Applied Seismology
Interests: seismology, high performance computing, applied math
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director of Research Administration and Finance
- Research Administration Manager / Institute for Geophysics / the
Sara Sieberath
Assistant Director of Research Administration and Finance
512-471-0306
sara@ig.utexas.edu
Roles: Finance, reporting, administrative and HR oversight
Interests: faults, structural geology, tectonics, and lithospheric dynamics, climate
Job Titles:
- Graduate Student Seeking MS, Tufts University
Nicholas joined UT GeoFluids in 2016. He received a BS in Facilities & Environmental Engineering in June 2002 and has over 10 years of experience in the construction industry managing various site remediation and building projects. He decided to pursue a master's degree in geotechnical engineering after working on the Sydney Tar Ponds Remediation Project in Nova Scotia, Canada. He is currently working towards a MS in Civil and Engineering, under the supervision of Jack Germaine.
Job Titles:
- Graduate Student Seeking MS, Tufts University
Job Titles:
- Research Scientist Associate IV
Job Titles:
- Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow
Job Titles:
- Project Director
- Co - Director of the GeoFluids Consortium ( UT Austin )
- Co - Director of UT GeoFluids Consortium
- Professor
- Professor of Geosciences
Interests: basin-scale fluid flow, methane hydrates, shale and mudstone permeability
Dr. Flemings studies stratigraphy and flow in porous media. He uses seismic, well, and core data to characterize subsurface systems, he uses theoretical modeling to study stratigraphic and hydrodynamic evolution, and he uses laboratory analysis to study geomechanical properties of low permeability rocks. Dr. Flemings is a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences, and a Research Scientist at the Institute for Geophysics.
Job Titles:
- Graduate Program Coordinator for the Jackson School of Geosciences at
Philip Guerrero, Graduate Program Coordinator for the Jackson School of Geosciences at philipg@mail.utexas.edu or 512.471.6098
Job Titles:
- Senior Administrative Associate
dynamics, land-atmospheric interactions, biogeochemistry. Alaska permafrost
Interests: paleoclimatology, paleoceanography, carbon cycle, orbital cyclicity
Job Titles:
- RESEARCH AFFILIATE / RESEARCH FELLOW
- Systems Consultant
Bob is a petroleum systems consultant conducting petroleum geochemical analysis, basin modeling, and play mapping through ChargeSearch, LLC. He holds a PhD in Geosciences (Biogeochemistry) from the University of Texas at Dallas, 1980. He retired from ExxonMobil after 31 years in June 2011. His career spans research assignments where he led teams on global source rock prediction and basin modeling and exploration assignments where he specialized in petroleum systems analysis across the US Western Interior basins, Arctic basins, offshore Norway, North, Central, and West Africa, Brazil, the North, Middle, and South Caspian, North Atlantic coastal basins, Middle East, and more recently basins of the Asia Pacific region and the Gulf of Mexico.
Interests: petroleum systems, geochemistry, source rocks
Job Titles:
- Technical Support Staff Member
- Senior System Administrator
Sean Johnson studied geotechnical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology His research interest included Wave Propagation through Bender Element agitation using Ticino Sand.
Interests: marine geology and geophysics, plate boundaries, glacial sequences, impact processes
Sebastian joined UT GeoFluids in 2016. He earned his MS in Geology with a minor in Petroleum Engineering from Colorado School of Mines. He holds a BS in Geological Engineering and a BS in Geology from the Unlockiversidad Complutense de Madrid with a minor in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Calgary. Before starting his MS, Sebastian worked on Unconventional Gas projects at the Energy Institute in London. He is interested in petrographic and petrophysical studies of mudrocks and is currently working on porosity and permeability experiments of tight rocks.
Interests: seismic imaging, seismic inversion, uncertainty quantification, Bayesian inference, machine learning
Interests: computational seismology, full waveform inversion, seismic anisotropy, ambient seismic noise, tectonic structure, nonlinear optimization
Stephen joined UT GeoFluids in 2017. He has graduated from University College Cork with a bachelors degree in Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering. He obtained a Masters in Geosystems Engineering at Tufts University with Dr. Germaine by exploring the Yield Surface of Gulf of Mexico Mudstone at 10MPa.
Job Titles:
- Research Affiliate / Research Fellow
Interests: gas hydrates, sedimentology, geochemistry
Job Titles:
- Member of the Technical and Administrative Staff
- Project Manager
Interests: ArcGIS Geoscience database management, microtectonics, structural geology
Job Titles:
- Senior Human Resources Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Program Manager, Texas Space Grant Consortium
Interests: sediment mechanics, fluid flow, geochemistry, geomicrobiology, sedimentology.
Taylor worked with UT Geofluids from 2013-2015. He experimentally studied the permeability anisotropy of resedimented Boston Blue Clay and resedimented Gulf of Mexico - Eugene Island mudrocks in virgin compression from 0.1 to 40 MPa. He collected data using vertically and radially-draining constant-rate-of-strain (CRS) consolidometers, and compared his data with cubic specimen flexible wall constant head permeability testing results. He tested both sheared and un-sheared specimens. He now works as a geotechnical engineer for Applied Geotechnical Engineering Consultants in Sandy, UT.
Job Titles:
- Senior Administrative Associate
Interests: cyberinfrastructure, geographic information systems, data management
Job Titles:
- Director, Texas Space Grant Consortium
Job Titles:
- Graduate Student Seeking PhD, the University of Texas at Austin
Tolulope joined the UT GeoFluids group in 2023 with a research focus on coupling pore pressure study with machine learning. He holds a B.Tech in Applied Geology from the Federal University of Technology Akure, MS in Geology from Kansas State University, and currently pursuing a PhD in Geology under the supervision of Dr. Flemings.
Job Titles:
- Research Scientist Associate V
Will joined UT GeoFluids in the fall of 2015. Prior to enrolling in the Jackson School of Geosciences, he graduated with a BS in Geology and Economics from Union College in Schenectady, NY, and spent three years working for an investment bank. Will's research interests include pore pressure prediction and rock/fluid interaction. In particular, he is building a pore pressure and stress profile of the Macondo prospect.
Job Titles:
- Graduate Research Assistant
Interests: Petroleum geology, seismic interpretation, reservoir characterization
William studied consolidation and deformation of mudstones in the Nankai Trough area of offshore Japan. He joined Halliburton after graduation in 2014.
Interests: depositional systems, Gulf of Mexico basin, petroleum geology
Interests: satellite geodesy, earthquakes, remote sensing
Yao's work focused on quantitative modeling of crustal fluids and geomorphology. He studied failure in sand caused by breaching in subaqueous and submarine environments, and modeled the pore pressure in Ursa Basin using soil properties measured by the UT GeoFluids group. After completing his PhD, Yao joined Hess.
Job Titles:
- Research Associate Professor
dynamics, ocean-atmosphere interactions, climate variability and change