Information for Prospective Students
Our Faculty and Their Research
Our faculty in January, 2006
Khalid Aziz
Otto N. Miller Professor of Earth Sciences. Ph.D., Rice University (Chemical Engineering), 1996. Professor Aziz teaches courses in reservoir simulation and field development design. He is interested in the investigation of multiphase, multi-component fluid flow in porous media and pipes. His research group develops techniques for predicting the performance of petroleum reservoirs by computer models.
Sally Benson
Sally M. Benson was appointed GCEP Executive Director in March 2007. An internationally-recognized scientist with extensive management experience, Benson is responsible for guiding the development of GCEP's diverse research portfolio. A Professor (Research) in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering in the School of Earth Sciences, Benson has been a member of Stanford's faculty since 2007.
Jef Caers
Associate Professor in Energy Resources Engineering. Ph.D., Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (Mining Engineering), 1997. Professor Caers' teaching and research focus on geostatistics for reservoir characterization. His broader interests are in applied statistics and applied mathematics in general, but applications in Earth Sciences seem to be the common denominator. Currently, Prof. Caers teaches basic geostatistics for undergraduates and an optimization class for graduate students, and is codirector of the Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting (with Prof. Journel).
Louis J. Durlofsky
Chair and Professor in Energy Resources Engineering. Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Chemical Engineering), 1986. Professor Durlofsky teaches courses in reservoir engineering and reservoir simulation. His research interests include the upscaling of detailed geological models for flow simulation, the modeling of horizontal wells and general reservoir simulation.
Stephan Graham
Professor. Ph.D., Stanford University. The study and characterization of sedimentary basins and the petroleum resources they contain assumes many forms and utilizes a variety of methodologies. His research group investigates the subsurface realm through borehole data and reflection seismic profiling; outcrops lend themselves to methods such as facies and paleocurrent analysis. Other tools, such as sedimentary petrography and organic geochemistry, are applied to borehole and outcrop samples. Professor Graham's research and teaching interests lie in the application of these approaches to the study of the origins, evolution and petroleum geology of sedimentary basins.
Margot Gerritsen
Assistant Professor of Energy Resources Engineering. Prof. Gerritsen's main interest is the design and analysis of efficient numerical solution methods for partial differential equations that arise in fluid dynamics. Her PhD thesis work emphasized mathematical techniques. After her PhD work, her focus has shifted to actual engineering applications. In New Zealand she ventured into tidal flow modeling and sail performance analysis. She is still involved in two projects in these areas. In Energy Resources Engineering she is specializing in adaptive mesh refinement techniques, high order resolution schemes, streamline methods and quality gridding.
Roland N. Horne
Professor of Energy Resources Engineering. Ph.D., University of Auckland (Theoretical and Applied Mechanics), 1975 and D.Sc., University of Auckland (Engineering), 1986. Professor Horne teaches introductory petroleum engineering, applied mathematics and optimization, well test analysis, geothermal reservoir engineering, computer applications and reservoir simulation. His research has been concerned with the broad class of optimization and nonlinear parameter estimation techniques as applied to oil, gas and geothermal reservoir engineering problems.
Andre G. Journel
Professor of Energy Resources Engineering and Geological and Environmental Sciences. DS2, University of Nancy (Economic Geology), 1974 and D.Sc., University of Nancy (Geostatistics), 1977. Professor Journel teaches geostatistics and reservoir modeling. Geostatistics deals with the analysis, characterization, and prediction of phenomena spread in space and/or time with some degree of continuity. Professor Journel's research group has pioneered the development of non-parametric geostatistics using soft data as provided by interpretative geology and seismic surveys.
Anthony R. Kovscek
Associate Professor of Energy Resources Engineering. Ph.D (Chemical Engineering) University of California, Berkeley, 1994. Professor Kovscek teaches courses related to thermodynamics and enhanced oil recovery. His research group explores heat and mass transfer mechanisms in porous media as they relate to enhanced oil recovery as well as how these mechanisms can be described mathematically and incorporated into reservoir simulators. Additionally, the exploitation of the phase behavior of methane/heavy crude oil systems and interfacial phenomena for efficient recovery of heavy oils is a major research task.
Tapan Mukerji
Associate Professor of Energy Resources Engineering. Ph.D (Geophysics) Stanford University, 1995. He is currently co-director of Stanford Center for Reservoir Forecasting .
Franklin M. Orr, Jr.
Professor of Energy Resources Engineering. Ph.D., University of Minnesota (Chemical Engineering), 1976. Professor Orr teaches courses on thermodynamics and miscible flooding. He is interested in enhanced oil recovery by miscible gas injection processes, performance prediction of field-scale flooding and the phase behavior of carbon dioxide/hydrocarbon mixtures. In order to design gas injection processes, his research group investigates through experiments, mathematical theory and numerical simulation the combined effects of phase behavior, heterogeneity, capillary phenomena, gravity segregation and viscous instability on displacement performance. Professor is also director of GCEP (Global Climate and Energy Program).
Hamdi Tchelepi
Associate Professor of Energy Resources Engineering. Ph.D., Stanford University (Petroleum Engineering), 1994. Research interests: Adaptive multiscale methods for reservoir simulation; Modeling unstable fluid flow in porous media; Scalable, parallel linear solvers for multiphase flow in heterogeneous reservoirs; Stochastic methods, including statistical moment equations, for quantifying the uncertainty associated with predictions of reservoir flow performance.
Jennifer Wilcox
Assistant Professor of Energy Resources Engineering. Ph.D., University of Arizona (Chemical Engineering ), 2004. Research interests: Modeling and measurement of trace metal speciation, i.e., mercury, arsenic, and selenium, released from coal combustion or gasification processes; sorbent design for high-temperature mercury capture; catalytic membrane design for CO2/H2 separation; CO2 sequestration; coal-to-liquid catalyst design.
Consulting Faculty
The department benefits from interactions with consulting and courtesy faculty. Some of our courses, Drilling, Engineering Valuation and Appraisal, and Well Log Analysis are taught by our consulting faculty who include Warren Kourt, Robert Lindblom and Kiran Pande.
Browse our Faculty Catalog
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