Annual Event Jointly Sponsored by EAS and Houston Geological Society Included 33 Student Poster Presentations

The Robert E. Sheriff Lecture was held on November 11, from 5-9 p.m., at the Norris Center at Town & Country Center in west Houston. The organizing committee for the 2024 Sheriff event included Drs. Robert Stewart (chair) and Paul Mann.

Twelve University of Houston Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences (EAS) students were recognized from a group of 33 research poster presentations. A panel of 32 volunteer judges selected from experts working with the Houston -area oil, gas, and environmental industry and from members of the EAS faculty reviewed the poster presentations. The judges are listed below.

Organizers from the Houston Geological Society include Catie Donohue (Vice-President of the Houston Geological Society and Petroleum Systems Subject Matter Expert at Murphy Oil Corporation), and Dr. Tom Lapen, chairman of the EAS department, who introduced the event by summarizing the accomplishments of the EAS department over the past year.

The Sheriff Lecture featured Dr. Lesli Wood, professor and Weimer Endowed Chair at the Department of Geology and Geological Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. She presented the 45-minute, lecture entitled “Seismic Geomorphology of Ancient Earthscapes - Strengthening our Perspectives of Deep Time and Clarifying Our Role in the World’s Future.”

Her talk included descriptions of offshore, seismic geomorphology based on industry 3D seismic data from the margins of northwestern Australia, the North Sea, the Permian Basin of west Texas, and the Atlantic margin of Trinidad, Guyana, and Suriname regions. The global environmental and other implications of these unique views of the Earth’s history were discussed. The talk was followed by an extensive Q&A session with the audience.

Results of the Sheriff EAS Student Poster Competition

Advanced Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences Category

First Place (Prize: $300)
Nima Khorshidian (Ph.D. Candidate, Atmospheric Sciences)
Enhancing weather and air quality simulations over Texas: The impact of the spectral bin microphysics scheme and observation nudging in WRF-Chem

Second Place (Prize: $200)
Rijul Dimri (Ph.D. Candidate, Atmospheric Sciences)
Simplifying atmospheric chemistry models using sparse nonlinear dynamics identification

Advanced Ph.D. in Geology Category

First Place (Prize: $300)
Lucille Baker-Stahl (Ph.D. Candidate, Geology)
The Impacts of freezing and thawing on near-surface soil behavior

Second Place (Prize: $200)
Ana Vielma (Ph.D. Candidate, Geology)
Revealing geochemical patterns in the lithofacies transition of the Monterey Formation: A machine learning approach to molecular datasets

Third Place (Prize: $200)
Jumoke Akinpelu (Ph.D. Candidate, Geology)
Crustal structure characterization offshore Niger delta, Nigeria and implications for ultra-deepwater hydrocarbon exploration

Advanced Ph.D. in Geophysics Category

First Place (Prize: $300)
Jake Parsons (Ph.D. Candidate, Geophysics)
Seismic monitoring of underground hydrogen storage

Second Place (Prize: $200)
Kenneth Shipper (Ph.D. Candidate, Geophysics)
Implications of lithospheric and thermal modeling of the Moroccan margin on petroleum exploration

M.S./First-Year Ph.D. Category

First Place (Prize: $300)
Daniel Ragusa (M.S. Candidate, Geology)
Tracking the water pH and atmospheric CO2 evolution during synthetic carbonate precipitation

Junior M.S./Undergrad in Geology Category

First Place (Prize: $300)
Estefani Ruiz Toro (M.S. Candidate, Geology)
Tectonic origin of the Bering Sea constrained by regional integration of geologic and geophysical data

Second Place (Prize: $200) - tie
Makenna Harris (M.S. Candidate, Geology)
How do charcoals record grassland fires in the stratigraphic record? Insights from the 2024 Windy Deuce Fire in the Texas Panhandle

Second Place (Prize: $200) - tie
Kennedy Potter (B.S. Candidate, Geology)
Subaqueous carbon sequestration in Elephant Butte Reservoir, New Mexico.

Undergrad in Geophysics Category

First Place (Prize: $300)
Juan Cruz (B.S. Candidate, Geophysics)
Rain and creepiness: Evaluating the correlation between rain and creep events in California

Thank You to 32 Volunteer Judges Who Evaluated the Student Posters

The organizers and student presenters would like to thank the following volunteer judges of the student poster session for sharing their time and expertise in the judging of the student posters.

Three Judges from EAS
Sharon Cornelius, Jagos Radovic, Jinny Sisson

Twenty-Nine Judges from the Houston-Area Geosciences Community
Timothy Cady (NOAA), Sebastian Cardona (ExxonMobil), Luis Carlos Carvajal Arenas (Woodside), Gabino Castillo (Apache Corp), Casey Donohue (Apache Corp), Sharma Dronoraju (AKD Professional Services), Sarah Giles (ExxonMobil), Bryan Gottfried (Murphy Oil Corp), Brian Horn (Next Era Energy Resources), David Lankford-Bravo (BP), Jonathan Membreno, (Arena Energy), Daniel Minisini (ExxonMobil), Patrick O’Connor (Murphy Oil Corp), Penny Patterson (Patterson Consulting), Carolina Ramon Duenas (Oxy), David Risch (Retired), Sandy Rushworth (Consultant), Elizabeth Scully (Marathon Oil), Ryan Stepler (Hess), Stephanie Suarez (Ikon Science), Haiting Sun (Apache Corp), Kurt Tollestrup (Applied Geodynamics Laboratory), Lucia Torrado (HGS), Robert Tscherny (ConocoPhillips), Adam Turner (Oxy), Patty Walker (Retired ExxonMobil), Meagan Wall (Stratochem), Rob Wellner (ExxonMobil), and Lance Wood (NOAA)