Faculty & Research Scientists
|Jay L Banner|
Isotopic methods, groundwater, oceans, ancient oceans, climate change, aquifers, caves, environmental science, geochemistry, paleoclimatology
Dr. Caldwell is a hydrologist and geoscientist specializing in field investigations and numerical modeling associated with near-surface vadose zone hydrology, landscape evolution, and soil moisture/ET. His current research focuses on ecohydrology, soil moisture modeling and monitoring, restoration and characterization of disturbed lands, the characterization and scaling of soils and hydraulic parameters, near-surface geophysics, and parameter optimization and numerical methods.
|M Bayani Cardenas|
Hydrology and Hydrogeology
|Ian J Duncan|
Expertise in geomechanic and geochemistry applied to: risks associated with CO2 sequestration; hydraulic fracturing for shale gas production; environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing; and the water-energy nexus. Current research focuses on the scientific, environmental and public policy aspects of unconventional natural gas production, the water-energy nexus, and carbon capture and storage. He has a particular interest in risk analysis, decision making, and legal/regulatory issues related to fracing, CO2 sequestration, CO2-EOR, and energy production.
Fault and fracture mechanics, diagenesis and low-temp. geochemistry, fluid flow and transfer processes in sedimentary basins, deformation mechanisms of the upper crust, structural control of mass and heat transfer in sedimentary basins, effects of chemical mass transfer on the mechanical and hydraulic behavior of fractures and faults, chemical interaction between fluids and minerals
Fluids in diagenetic and hydrothermal systems, Fluid inclusion techniques, Fracture analysis, Structural diagenesis, Unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs, Raman spectroscopy
|William L Fisher|
Basin analysis, sequence stratigraphy, depositional systems, petroleum geology, resource assessment, energy policy
|Peter B Flemings|
Stratigraphy, basin analysis, basin-scale fluid flow, pore pressures in seafloor sediments, submarine landslides, oil and gas migration, methane hydrates, Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP)
Computational geoscience and engineering, simulation and optimization of complex solid, fluid, and biomechanical systems, inverse problems, optimal design, and optimal control
|Seyyed Abolfazl Hosseini|
Research interests are mainly topics related to fluid transport in porous media. Current research includes: Enhanced Oil Recovery - Enhanced Gas Recovery - Upscaling and Upgridding - Above Zone Monitoring Interval - Reservoir Simulation and History Matching - Unconventional Reservoirs
|Susan D Hovorka|
Geologic carbon sequestration in deep sedimentary environments as part of carbon capture and storage. PI of the Gulf Coast Caron Center (www.gulfcoastcarbon.org) focused on research relevant to commercial development of geologic sequestration in regions where it is both needed and possible. Monitoring field projects. Petrography and sedimentology supporting hydrogeology in karst and contaminated systems. K-12 and public outreach and education.
Dispersion phenomena in porous systems (hydrocarbon reservoirs and brine aquifers); shale gas; CO2 injection up-scaling; EOR, EGR, and sequestration; nonotechnology in rock characterization.
|Luc L Lavier|
Tectonics; the structural and geodynamical evolution of continental and oceanic rifts, as well as collisional environments; numerical techniques to model tectonic processes on crustal and lithospheric scales; deformation; subduction
|Robert G Loucks|
Research in carbonate, sandstone, and mudrock stratigraphy, sedimentology, diagenesis, reservoir characterization, and pore network analysis.
|Dr. Tip Meckel|
Stratigraphy, structural geology, CO2 sequestration, carbon capture and storage, CCS, high-resolution 3D seismic imaging
Subsurface hydrology, numerical modeling and optimization of groundwater resources, multiphase flow and contaminant transport in both the unsaturated and saturated zones, geochemistry modeling and subsurface reactive transport, Mathematical geology, geostatistics, inverse modeling, optimization, risk assessment and risk analysis
Maria-Katerina Nikolinakou is currently a Research Associate at the Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, at the University of Texas at Austin. She works for the AGL and GeoFluids consortia. Maria is a Civil/Geotechnical Engineer. She received her Science Doctorate on Theoretical Soil Mechanics from MIT in 2008. She holds a M.Sc. in Geotechnical Engineering from MIT and a Civil Engineering degree from NTUA, Greece. Before joining the Jackson School, she worked ...
|John M Sharp|
Hyrdogeology; flow in fractured rocks; thermohaline free convection; fracture skin effects; regional flow in carbonate rocks; hydrology of arid and semi-arid zones; subsidence and coastal land loss; effects of urbanization; alluvial aquifers; hydrogeology of sedimentary basins;hydrological processes in ore deposit formation; and hydrogeophysics.
|Kyle T Spikes|
Exploration Geophysics, in particular rock physics applications and seismic inversion techniques for reservoir characterization.
Subjects: Carbon sequestration, hydrological modeling, computational geoscience, fracture/fault modeling Skill sets: Geostatistical modeling, inversion and optimization algorithms, numerical modeling, web-based decision support systems Programming: Matlab, Python, Fortran, C, ArcGIS
Are rocks elastic? Not really... especially when saturated with multi-phase fluids. Did you know that a seismic wave is able of mobilizing the liquid saturating rocks and that such a process reduces the seismic wave strength? Yes, this phenomenon, called Wave-Induced-Fluid-Flow could be used to improve subsurface imaging. How? The absorption of elastic energy varies with frequency, this means that certain frequencies are attenuated and other maybe not. Why is this important? Well, adding information ...
Dr. Yang's primary research interest is to understand the exchanges of momentum, radiation, heat, water, carbon dioxide, and other materials between the atmosphere and the Earth surface spanning from small (short) to very large (long) scales. This includes analysis of in-situ and remotely-sensed data for the Earth's surface, and modeling studies of weather, climate and hydrology at local, regional and global scales.
|Athma R Bhandari|
- Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide - Quantitative Hydrogeology - Experimental analysis of subsurface processes - Multiphase flow and transport numerical models - Control and monitoring of underground civil work - Geological, hydrological, and geotechnical characterization of porous and fractured media
Fluid Flow and Transport Through Porous Media Parameter Optimization Finite Element and Finite Difference Modeling Analytical Modeling
|Toti E Larson|
Dr. Larson is a stable isotope geochemist specializing in novel methods of light isotope measurement that include silicate laser fluorination, compound-specific carbon isotope measurement, and gas chromatography. His current research focuses on developing tracers to probe shallow (vadose zone) and deeper CO2 sequestration and unconventional reservoirs. He integrates experimental flow through column experiments with diffusion-advection modeling to understanding the behavior of tracer compounds in a variety of substrates. He also couples light isotope fractionation with ...