HYDROGEOLOGY DEPARTMENT

The Hydrogeology Department has expertise in theoretical, experimental, field, and modeling approaches in a variety of research areas, among which are advanced process modeling, reservoir engineering, vadose-zone and fracture hydrology, contaminant hydrology, and coupled nonisothermal, geochemical, and geomechanical processes.

Birkholzer,Jens T - Dr. Jens Birkholzer is a Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab). As an internationally recognized expert in subsurface energy applications and environmental impact assessment, he currently serves as the Director for the Energy Geosciences Division (EGD) in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area (EESA). He received his Ph.D. in water resources, hydrology, and soil science from Aachen University of Technology in Germany in 1994. Dr. Birkholzer joined LBNL in 1994, left for a management position in his native Germany in 1999, and eventually returned to LBNL in 2001. He has over 400 scientific publications, about 120 of which are in peer-reviewed journals, in addition to numerous research reports. He serves on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control (IJGGC) and is also on the Board of Editorial Policy Advisors for the Journal of Geomechanics for Energy and Environment (GETE). Dr. Birkholzer leads the international DECOVALEX Project as its Chairman, is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, and serves as a Senior Fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology.

Cihan, Abdullah - Dr Cihan is a geological scientist in the Energy Geosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His general research area is transport phenomena in subsurface environments, with emphasis on theoretical description of flow and transport processes affected by heterogeneities across scales. His research applications have been related to geologic carbon sequestration, gas/oil production from unconventional reservoirs, evaporation from soil, land-mine detection in soil and groundwater remediation.

Correa, Julia - Dr. Correa is a Postdoctoral Researcher. Her research is focused in developing an intelligent seismic monitoring array for carbon capture and storage projects. She focuses on the use of fiber-optics sensing DAS and permanent surface orbital vibrators (SOV) for developing an alternative cost-effective monitoring system.

Doughty,Christine A - Dr. Doughty's research interests include development and application of techniques for analyzing well-log, well-test, and tracer data to infer the distribution of hydrologic properties in heterogeneous geologic settings, including fractured rock; mathematical modeling of multi-component, multi-phase fluid flow and transport in such systems; coordination of modeling studies with laboratory and field work; collaboration with geophysicists, geochemists, and geologists in interdisciplinary studies. Applications include the geologic storage of carbon dioxide and nuclear waste, groundwater and vadose-zone contaminant remediation, optimal utilization of geothermal and petroleum reservoirs, and design and analysis of aquifer and soil thermal energy storage systems.

Faybishenko,Boris A - Dr. Boris Faybishenko is Staff Scientist of Earth Sciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Conducted field site characterization, monitoring and modeling investigations of coupled water and gas flow and chemical transport (organics, radionuclides, and metals) in unsaturated (vadose zone) and saturated (groundwater) soils and fractured rock. These investigations have been related to environmental protection, bioremediation, natural attenuation, long-term monitoring of contaminated areas, and optimization of coupled energy-water systems under present-day and future climatic conditions. Conducted investigations at several organically and radioactively contaminated sites in the USA (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA; Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho; Savannah River Site, Georgia; Rifle site, CO; McClellan Air Force Site, Sacramento, CA; Yucca Mountain, NV; Hanford Site, WA) and in other countries—Ukraine, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Argentina.

Fiske, Peter - Dr. Peter S. Fiske is the Director of the Water-Energy Resilience Research Institute (WERRI)at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. WERRI’s goal is to orient and align the water-related research programs at LBNL to address critical gaps in the reliability, efficiency and sustainability of water-energy systems in California and the nation.

Hu, Mengsu - Dr. Hu develops numerical models for analyzing coupled thermal-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) processes in geological media, ranging from microscale for understanding fundamental mechanisms to kilometer scale for realizing adaptive control of applied energy geosciences activities such as nuclear waste disposal, hydrocarbon recovery and geothermal exploitation.

Jeanne, Pierre - Dr. Jeanne's research is mainly focused on the development of methods and numerical models to investigate the role of thermo-hydromechanical processes on fault zones stability in heterogeneous multiphase fluid environments. In particular, he uses fluid coupled geomechanical models to analyze the mechanisms of induced seismicity during EGS and CO2 sequestration projects. He also conducts analysis of seismicity data to characterize the reservoir properties and to calibrate and validate his geomechanical models.

Jordan,Preston D - Preston D. Jordan is a Principal Scientific Engineering Associate with the Energy Geosciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Kneafsey,Timothy J - Timothy Kneafsey P.E., Ph.D. is a Geological Scientist, Mechanical Engineer in the Energy Geosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Head of the Hydrocarbon Resources Program. He performs laboratory and field experimental studies on a variety of topics including heat transfer and mass transport in fractured and porous rock; measures hydrological, geophysical, and geomechanical properties of hydrate-bearing sediments and supercritical CO2-bearing rock; probes transport of acid gases in geothermal systems; visualizes fluids (liquid and gas) flow through coal and rock while simultaneously measuring geophysical properties related to coal-bed methane and CO2 sequestration; and investigates issues related to CO2 sequestration including CO2-induced density driven brine advection. Dr. Kneafsey has used a variety of visualization tools in his investigations including direct and differential imaging, spatially resolved infrared thermometry, and x-ray CT scanning, and has a patent for a CT scanner design.

Moridis,George J - George Moridis is a Senior Scientist in the Energy Geosciences Division of LBNL and a visiting professor in the Petroleum Engineering Dept. at Texas A&M University, and in the Guangzhou Center for Gas Hydrate Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; he is also an adjunct professor in the Chemical Engineering Dept. at the Colorado School of Mines, and in the Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering Dept. of the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He holds MS and PhD degrees from Texas A&M University and BS and ME degrees in chemical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. Moridis is the author or coauthor of over 75 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 3 book chapters, 3 book chapters, and more than 200 LBNL reports, paper presentations and book articles. He was a Distinguished Lecturer of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) for 2009–10, and a SPE Distinguished Member since 2010. He is the recipient of a 2011 Secretarial Honor Award – the highest non-monetary award of the U.S. Department of Energy – for work on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Flow Rate Technical Group. He is on the editorial board of three scientific journals, an Associate Editor of four scientific journals, and a reviewer for 26 scientific publications.

Newcomer, Michelle - Dr. Michelle Newcomer is a Research Scientist in the Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She is a member of the Watershed Function SFA 2.0 Team and her research focuses on analyzing the effects of climate perturbations on hydrological and biogeochemical cycling in hyporheic zones and as a function of surface water-groundwater interactions. Her current research links dynamic mechanisms of microbial transformations to larger scale effects driven by climate in the East River, CO, and the Russian River, CA. Michelle completed her PhD in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley and has a wide range of hydrological interests.

Oldenburg,Curtis M - Curtis Oldenburg is a Senior Scientist, Energy Resources Program Domain Lead, Geologic Carbon Sequestration Program Lead, and Editor in Chief of Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology. Curt’s area of expertise is numerical model development and applications for coupled subsurface flow and transport processes. He has worked in geothermal reservoir modeling, vadose zone hydrology, and compressed gas energy storage. Curt’s focus for the last fifteen years has been on geologic carbon sequestration with emphasis on CO2 injection for enhanced gas recovery, and near-surface leakage and seepage including monitoring, detection, and risk-based frameworks for site selection and certification. Curt Oldenburg is a co-author of the textbook entitled Introduction to Carbon Capture and Sequestration.

Pan, Lehua - Dr. Pan received his PhD in soil physics/hydrology from University of Arizona in 1995, MS in soil physics from Zhejiang Agricultural University in 1986, and BS in geology from Zhejiang University in 1982. Dr. Pan has been working at LBNL since 1997 and is an expert in computer modeling of Earth systems and processes. He is the author or co-author of numerous scientific publications and software’s.

Reagan, Matthew - Dr. Reagan is a Research Scientist in the Energy Geosciences Division (EGD) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He specializes in research on the thermodynamics, transport, and chemistry of aqueous systems in the subsurface, including research on the thermodynamics of gas hydrates, methane hydrates as a resource, the coupling of methane hydrates and global climate, data reduction and uncertainty, shale gas and shale oil reservoir simulation and engineering, and the impacts of oil and gas production on the environment.

Rutqvist,Jonny - Dr. Rutqvist's research is currently focused on modeling of coupled thermal-hydraulic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) processes in geological media. He enjoys developing and applying coupled modeling to a wide range of geoscientific and geoengineering applications, including geological sequestration of CO2, enhanced geothermal systems, gas hydrate bearing sediments, geological disposal of spent nuclear fuel, underground compressed air energy storage, and shale gas extraction. Jonny really enjoys using coupled modeling for interpretation of field data to try to build a conceptual understanding and to explain the underlying coupled processes in complex geological systems.

Tokunaga,Tetsu K - Dr. Tokunaga is a Senior Scientist in the Energy Geosciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, studying the physicochemical basis of environmental transport processes. While conducting his graduate studies on gas diffusion in porous media at the University of California, Berkeley, he began working at LBNL on problems of unsaturated flow and transport from uranium mill tailings, and on reactive transport of selenium in contaminated wetland (Kesterson Reservoir). Upon graduation, he continued at LBNL conducting laboratory and field based studies on soil/geologic transport problems. In addition to his research at LBNL, he taught soil physics courses at the University of California, Berkeley. He currently has over 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Wainwright,Haruko Murakami - Dr. Wainwright's initial research interest was to investigate the environmental impact of nuclear waste and nuclear weapon productions. Her PhD dissertation focused on Bayesian geostatistical inverse modeling for subsurface characterization at the uranium-contaminated DOE Hanford site. Since then, she has broadened her research interest to various environmental problems, including Arctic ecosystem responses to climate change, groundwater contamination, and deep-subsurface CO2 storage. In addition to working in many interdisciplinary projects, she is the deputy lead of the site application thrust in the Advanced Simulation Capability for Environmental Management project, leading the site application at the Savannah River Site F-Area. She is also in the leadership team of Institute for Resilient Communities, which aims to prepare communities for radiological and other disasters through research, education and outreach activities.

Wan, Jiamin - Dr. Wan's research is focused on interfacial, wetting, and capillary phenomena in geologic materials, and on biogeochemical reactions and subsurface transport of contaminants, colloids and nano-particulates. Her studies under high-pressure and high-temperature reservoir conditions combine pore-scale microscopy of fluid interfacial dynamics with surface spectroscopy and macroscopic interfacial measurements to understand mechanisms controlling CO₂, water, and oil interactions. She currently has over 70 publications in peer-reviewed journals. She has been the lead principal investigator for many projects over the past two decades, obtaining funding through competitive peer-reviewed processes.

Xu, Zexuan - Dr. Xu is a postdoc currently working on the integrated hydrology and reactive transport model in East River, Colorado, supported by Watershed Function SFA project. He use reactive transport modeling approach to study the concentration-discharge relationship and understand the interaction of hydrology and subsurface mineral compositions in geological layers. His postdoc research was also supported by LBNL LDRD “Modeling the Earth’s hydrological cycle from watershed to global scales,” to investigate the responses of water resources, such as streamflow and groundwater levels, to atmosphere processes, land cover changes and human factors.

Zhang,Yingqi - Dr. Zhang's i research interests/experience are in numerical modeling of multiphase flow in porous media; inverse modeling; optimization, uncertainty and risk analysis. Applications include geological carbon sequestration, groundwater monitoring network design, environmental remediation design, geothermal system, nuclear waste management.

Zheng,Liange - Dr. Zheng's research interests, which are centered on numerical modeling of non-isothermal, multiphase flow and multi-component reactive transport in porous media, and also include the inverse methodologies of parameter estimation, and coupled modeling of thermal (T), hydrodynamic (H), mechanical (M) and chemical (C) processes in the subsurface.

Zhou,Quanlin - Dr. Zhou is a geological staff scientist . He began his career at Hohai University, Nanjing, China as an undergraduate and a graduate in Hydrology and Water Resources. Upon his graduation, he continued his career at Nanjing Institute of Hydrology and Water Resources, conducting flood-control and water resources management research on the Three-Gorge Project and the South-North Water Transfer Project. He then pursued PhD studies in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, developing numerical techniques for modeling of seawater intrusion and density-dependent flow, leading to completion of his doctoral thesis. As a post-doctoral researcher at MIT, he developed numerical codes to investigate phenomena of DNAPL migration in heterogeneous porous media and compared numerical-modeling results to stochastic-analysis ones.