Rock Physics Influencers
Rock Physics Influencers program (RPI) is an initiative to provide short interview statements from nominated and selected eminent scientists who have been recognized to have made significant contributions and impacts that influenced changes to the rock physics community. The same set of questions was asked to capture different views from the selected influencers who work on various rock physics sub-disciplines. The influencers are invited to share their pathway for success, viewpoints they see in rock physics challenges, and advice they have for aspiring rock physicists. The program honors the prestigious scientists for their long standing research and continuous contributions in the area of rock physics. The profile is updated on a bi-monthly basis.
21RPI, January-February 2019
Jack Dvorkin
Jack’s undergraduate and M.S. degrees were earned in 1974 at Moscow Lomonosov (State) University at the Department of Mechanics and Mathematics, Division of Mechanics. The topic of his M.S. thesis was the impact of a rigid wedge Read more ...
22RPI, March-April 2019
Mark G. Kittridge
Mark Kittridge is currently a Petrophysical Consultant with Occidental Oil & Gas Corporation, as well as Founder and Principal Petroleum Engineer at MUREX Petrophysics & Rock Physics, LLC. He earned both BSc and Professional degrees ... Read more ...
19RPI, September-October 2018
Doug Angus
I am currently Director of R&D at ESG Solutions after having left the University of Leeds in 2016 as an Associate Professor of Seismic Geomechanics. I have been working on developing and applying new technology in the field of seismic Read more ...
20RPI, November-December 2018
Lev Vernik
After launching my career as a wellsite geologist on the Kola Superdeep Scientific Drilling Project in the Soviet Union, gaining expertise in petrophysics and rock physics, and finally expanding into seismic modelling and inversion, Read more ...
17RPI, May-June 2018
Rune M Holt
As a high school student in the 60’ies, Rune was fascinated by the ongoing space exploration as well as atomic scale physics. His favourite topic was math, and through his physics teacher he discovered that mathematics was not only... Read more ...
18RPI, July-August 2018
Dario Grana
Dario Grana is an associate professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Wyoming. He received a MS in Mathematics at University of Pavia (Italy) in 2005, a MS in Applied Mathematics at University of Milano Bicocca Read more ...
15RPI, January-February 2018
Paul Hatchell
I joined Shell in 1989 after receiving a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Wisconsin. I started my career at Shell’s Technology Center in Houston and worked on a variety of research topics including shear-wave logging, Read more ...
16RPI, March-April 2018
Tiziana Vanorio
Tiziana got her MS and PhD from the University “Federico II” in Naples, Italy. She then joined the Rock Physics group at Stanford for her post-doctoral research, working on the rock physics of volcanic rocks and clay-bearing analogues. Read more ...
13RPI, September-October 2017
Borish Gurevich
Boris Gurevich obtained his Diploma (Russian equivalent of MSc) at Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1981 and started his career at the Moscow Institute of Geosystems. His early work included numerical analysis of NMR signals, and application Read more ...
14RPI, November-December 2017
Ran Bachrach
Ran received his B.Sc. in geophysics and planetary science in 1993 at Tel Aviv University, and a Ph.D. in Geophysics, with a Ph.D. Minor, in Civil Engineering, in 1998, from Stanford University. His doctoral dissertation was titled “High Resolution Read more ...
11RPI, May-June 2017
James Berryman
Jim has undergraduate degrees in Math and Physics from the University of Kansas (in Lawrence Kansas). His advanced degrees are in Physics (major in solid state physics) and an Electrical Engineering minor (in nonlinear electrical systems). Read more ...
12RPI, July-August 2017
Michel Kemper
Michael Kemper is a geoscientist/petroleum engineer with 28 years’ experience in geophysics, petrophysics, and reservoir engineering. He spent the first 13 years with Shell International in The Hague, Nigeria, and London, during which time he Read more ...
9RPI, January-February 2017
Bill Goodway
I grew up and was educated in the UK near London. My early introduction to science came at Brentwood School, a 550-year-old boarding school in County Essex, just east of London where two imaginative teachers made physics, astronomy and Read more ...
10RPI, March-April 2017
Manika Prasad
Manika started her career with a geology degree from Bombay University. After hearing about plate tectonics from her undergraduate professor (Dr. Sethna), she was hooked! That fascination took her to Germany to study Marine Geophysics and Geology. Read more ...
7RPI, September-October 2016
Colin Sayers
Colin Sayers was born in the North West of England, and obtained a B.A. in Physics from Lancaster University in 1973. He then moved to Imperial College, London, where he received a D.I.C. (Diploma of Imperial College) in Mathematical Physics Read more ...
8RPI, November-December 2016
Per Avseth
Per Avseth is currently an independent geophysical consultant based in Oslo and an adjunct professor (since 2008) in reservoir geophysics at NTNU in Trondheim. Per is an expert in rock physics and quantitative seismic interpretation. He has been Read more ...
5RPI, May-June 2016
Jean-Pierre "JP" Blangy
It took me about ten years to find a scientific problem that I really wanted to solve, that morphed into identifying other problems, and it all turned into a passion: that of using rock physics, in some form or fashion, to solve practical Read more ...
6RPI, July-August 2016
Serge Shapiro
Serge A. Shapiro is a full Professor of Geophysics at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, and since 2004, Director of the PHASE (PHysics and Application of Seismic Emission) university consortium project. His research interests include Read more ...
3RPI, January-February 2016
Erling Fjær
Erling Fjær is a chief scientist at SINTEF Petroleum Research in Trondheim, Norway. He also holds a position as adjunct professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. For the last 30 years, he has been working within the areas Read more ...
4RPI, March-April 2016
Jorg Herwanger
When I started to study Geophysics, I knew one thing for certain: “I will not work in the Oil industry”. This was just after the Exxon Valdez oil spill and at the onset of the decommissioning debate of the Brent Spar. Big Oil was evil. Geophysics Read more ...
1RPI, August-September 2015
Dave Dewhurst
Dave Dewhurst is a senior research scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and is based in Perth, Australia. He has a long standing interest in clays and shales, dating from the early 1990s, where he worked Read more ...
2RPI, October-November 2015
Leon Thomsen
Leon’s undergraduate degree was earned in 1964 at the California Institute of Technology, then and now a pre-eminent center of excellence in geophysics. In those days, the real excitement was in plate tectonics, planetary exploration, and Read more ...