EAS Hosts the 29th Annual Dobrin Lecture
The Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the Geophysical Society of Houston (GSH) co-hosted the 29th Annual Milton B. Dobrin Lecture on February 21 at the UH Alumni Center.
Dr. Dobrin was an outstanding and beloved professor at the University of Houston from 1969 until his untimely death in 1980. His many accomplishments included serving as president of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), winning the best paper in the journal Geophysics, and serving as editor of Geophysics. He may be best known, however, for his textbook: Introduction to Geophysical Prospecting.
To commemorate his memory and accomplishments, each year the department and GSH invite a top distinguished scientist to present at the Dobrin Lecture.
The evening started on a high note with 30 poster presentations by students and a packed crowd of students, faculty, staff, and alumni, along with industry, GSH, and SEG representatives. Short welcoming statements were made by faculty member John Castagna, GSH treasurer Renee Mott, and SEG president Ken Tubman. This was followed by an overview of EAS accomplishments by our chair, Tom Lapen, and a review of geophysical activities at EAS by Yingcai Zheng.
The 2023 Dobrin Lecturer was Joseph Powell, director of the UH Energy Transition Institute. He presented an inspiring forward-looking talk entitled “The Energy Transition: What it Means for Houston and the World.”
After the lecture, a lively discussion session was followed by the presentation of $3,000 in cash awards for best student posters, judged by experts attending the Dobrin Lecture. Starting with the first place award, five awards were granted as follows:
- Presley Greer, “Detecting subsurface ice wedges using GPR at the CRREL Permafrost Tunnel in Fairbanks, Alaska”
- Joe McNease and Sephora Yameogo, “Technical Analysis of Texas Gulf Coast as a Viable Gigatonne Geological Carbon Storage Hub”
- Jake Parsons, “3D Seismic Wave Modeling and Inversion in Fractured Media for Energy Transition”
- Kenneth Shipper, Bandar Alshammary, Diego Mostaccero, Basil Nwafor, Doyin Oyetunji, David Evans Bass, Nabeel Muhammedy, Afolabi Babalola, Mary Van Der Loop, “Reservoir Characterization for CO2 Storage: An Amended Case Study of the Sleipner Field.”
- Basil Nwafor, “Subsurface Characterization of Inas Field, Offshore Malay Basin: A Potential Field for Carbon Storage”