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The People
Core and affiliated faculty teaching across geology, geophysics, petrophysics and reservoir engineering — and supervising capstone projects.
Core Faculty
Nicholas Harris
Professor and Director
Dr. Harris is a geologist with fifteen years experience in the oil and gas industry and academic experience at the Pennsylvania State University, Colorado School of Mines, and the University of Alberta, where he has taught since 2010. He has directed the IPG / IEG program since 2014. His research interests include unconventional reservoirs (gas shales, tight gas sands), models for the origin of hydrocarbon source rocks, sandstone diagenesis and reservoir quality, applications of geochemistry to the interpretation of fine-grained sediments, and reservoir analysis for geothermal energy and carbon sequestration. He supervises capstone projects in the IEG program.
Teaches
IPG 518 · IPG 514 · EAS 520
David Potter
Professor
Dr. Potter is a petrophysicist. He teaches courses in geophysical exploration methods, physical properties of earth materials, rock physics, rock properties, well logging and petrophysics, and borehole and laboratory methods in geophysics and petrophysics.
Teaches
IPG 510
Elena Konstantinovskaya
Instructor
Dr. Konstantinovskaya is a structural geologist, with a research emphasis on predictive models of fault hydraulic behaviour, fault shear reactivation potential, and top seal breaching under the in situ stress and pore pressure changes caused by depletion or injection operations, including CCS. Her work integrates structural studies of outcrops, interpretation of seismic reflection data, analysis of vertical anisotropy and brittleness in shales, and coupled reservoir geomechanical numerical simulations. She supervises capstone projects in the IEG program.
Teaches
IPG 512
One bio needs completing
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Affiliated
Faculty from across Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Physics and industry who teach into the IEG curriculum and supervise capstone projects.
Jose Alvarez
Instructor
Dr. Alvarez is a petroleum engineer and technical lead with InnoTech Alberta. His research has focused largely on applications of modeling to heavy oil accumulations and has collaborated extensively with faculty at the University of Alberta. He has taught the IEG course in Petroleum Production since 2010 and has supervised or co-supervised numerous capstone projects.
Teaches
IPG 516
Mirko van der Baan
Professor
Dr. van der Baan is a geophysicist with expertise in seismology. His current research interests involve signal processing, microseismicity and seismic wave propagation in anisotropic media.
Teaches
IPG 512
Martyn Unsworth
Professor
Dr. Unsworth is a geophysicist with expertise in potential methods (electromagnetics), with applications to geothermal systems.
Teaches
GEOPH 424 · PHYS 699
Octavian Catuneanu
Professor
Dr. Catuneanu is a stratigrapher and sedimentologist. He is a widely recognized authority in sequence stratigraphy; his textbook Principles of Sequence Stratigraphy is widely used by professionals and students.
Teaches
EAS 562 · EAS 565
J-P Zonneveld
Professor
Dr. Zonneveld is a sedimentologist and paleontologist, whose research focuses on the interface between sedimentology and biology.
Teaches
EAS 333 · EAS 565
IEG faculty bring industry experience in reservoir analysis, petrophysics, geomechanics and seismic interpretation directly into the classroom.