News
ESE Awards Lunch: May 29, 2026:
Congratulations to Warisa Nuntaprayoon for receiving the Frank G. Miller Fellowship award for high academic achievement. The Miller Fellowship recognizes the top student each quarter in course performance.
Thesis Defense on May 12, 2026:
Jimin Zhou successfully defended his thesis on May 12, 2026. His work is entitled The Statics and Dynamics of Underground Hydrogen Storage: Hydrogen Phase Behavior and Transport in Porous Media. Congratulations Dr. Zhou!
April 13, 2026: SPE Western Regional Meeting Student Paper Contest: SUETRI-A students Marwah AlSinan and Isabela Beine took home awards in the 2026 SPE Western Regional Meeting Student Paper Contest! Marwah’s talk, titled ‘Integrated Geospatial Assessment of Geologic Hydrogen Resources of the United States’, won second place in the PhD division. Isabela’s talk, titled ‘Stress-Actuated Microfluidic Cell Enables In-situ Imaging of Fracture Dissolution and Closure’, won first place in the M.S. division. Isabela will represent Stanford at the SPE International Student Paper Contest in Houston in October. Congrats to both Marwah and Isabela!
SUETRI-A’s very own Emma Li was part of the Platinum Award winning team at Academia Sinica’s International Net-Zero Technology Business Plan Competition. Their proposal, Century EGS, is designed to help Taiwan develop its domestic geothermal energy resource by drilling into reservoirs and engineering controlled circulation pathways. Despite Taiwan’s 40GW geothermal potential, exploration remains risky and expensive, making geothermal projects difficult to finance. Their solution is an AI-driven subsurface platform, which integrates geological and drilling data with expert knowledge to identify the most promising sites, recommend optimal drilling strategies, and generate risk-adjusted development plans. Congratulations to Emma and the team! An official communication can be found by clicking on the title link.
Thesis Defense on October 15, 2025:
Yulman Perez-Claro successfully defended his thesis on October 15, 2025. His work is entitled Understanding Mass Transfer Mechanisms in Shale Using Computed Tomography and Assessment of Subsurface Energy Storage in California. Congratulations Dr. Perez-Claro!!
2025 ESE Award Winners: Isabela Beine and Emma Li
Isabela Beine and Emma Li won the Frank G. Miller Fellowship award recognizing the top students each quarter in course performance awarded by the Energy Science and Engineering Department at the 2025 ERE Awards Ceremony.
Siebel Scholar 2025: SUETRI-A member Jimin Zhou has been named a Siebel Scholar in Energy Sciences. Congrats, Jimin!
Fatimah AlNasser and Geo Zhang Honored for Best Paper at URTec 2024: The research paper titled ‘Microfluidic Investigation of Ferrofluid Assisted Recovery in Porous Media’ by Fatimah AlNasser, Geo Zhang, and Prof. Tony Kovscek was honored as one of the best papers at the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTec) 2024. Congratulations to our authors!
Thesis Defense on August 1, 2024:
Manju Pharkavi Murugesu successfully defended her thesis on August 1, 2024. Her work is entitled Imaging Reactive Transport in Geological Media. Congratulations Dr. Murugesu!
2024 ERE Award Winners: Fatimah AlNAsser and Jimin Zhou
Fatimah AlNasser won the Frank G. Miller Fellowship award recognizing the top student each quarter in course performance awarded by the Energy Resources Engineering Department at the 2024 ERE Awards Ceremony.
Jimin Zhou won the Henry J. Ramey Fellowship award recognizing the most prominent research student awarded by the Energy Resources Engineering Department at the 2024 ERE Awards Ceremony.
First place in the M.S. division of the SPE Western North America Student Paper Contest 2024:
Fatimah AlNasser won first place in the M.S. division of the SPE Western North America Student Paper Contest. She will represent Stanford at the International Student Paper Contest in New Orleans in September 2024.
15th International Symposium on Wettability:
SUETRI-A’s Alumni attended the International Symposium on Wettability in Laraime, Wyoming. The symposium took place during October 22 -25, 2023.
Siebel Scholar 2024: SUETRI-A member Manju Pharkavi Murugesu has been named a Siebel Scholar in Energy Sciences. Congrats, Manju!
First SUETRI-A’s Annual Meeting:
The first SUETRI-A’s affiliates meeting took place during April 21 -22, 2023.
Prof. Tony Kovscek elected into the National Academy of Engineering (NAE): Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education. Congratulations Prof. Tony Kovscek!
2022 ERE Award Winner: Geo Zhang
Ge Zhang won the Frank G. Miller Fellowship award recognizing the top student each quarter in course performance awarded by the Energy Resources Engineering Department at the 2022 ERE Awards Ceremony.
2021 ERE Award Winner: Negar Nazari: Negar Nazari won the William H. Brigham Memorial Award for Best Departmental Citizen awarded by the Energy Resources Engineering Department at the 2021 ERE Awards Ceremony.
- Thesis Defenses October 24 and 25: Team members Talal Alshafloot and Laura Frouté successfully defended their theses entitled “Investigation of Mechanical Failure of Unconventional Rocks and Transport in Resulting Fractures with Implications for Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Storage and Utilization as a Stimulation Agent” and “High-resolution Structural Characterization of Shale Nano-porosity”, respectively. Congratulations Talal and Laura!
- Summer School on Hydrogen Storage: Prof. Tony Kovscek was a featured lecturer at the TU Delft Underground Hydrogen Storage Summer School held July 11 to 13. His lecture was entitled “Reservoir Seals and the Containment of Hydrogen in Subsurface Formations”.
- SPE John Franklin Carll Award 2021: Prof. Tony Kovscek was awarded the SPE John Franklin Carll Award. According to the SPE website: “The John Franklin Carll Award, established in 1956, recognizes distinguished contribution in the application of engineering principles to petroleum development and recovery.”! [link]
- Siebel Scholar 2020: We are very excited to announce that for the second year in a row, a SUETRI-A member, Tim Anderson, has been named a Siebel Scholar in Energy Sciences. Congrats, Tim! [link, link]
- Applied Nano Materials Journal Cover: The work of our team member Wonjin Yun, and a research team from Aramco has been published in the ACS Applied Nano Materials Journal, and one of the paper illustrations was selected for the journal cover. Congratulations, Wonjin! [link]
- Siebel Scholar 2019: With great pride we announce the recent recognition of our team member, Usua Amanam as one of the presitigious Siebel Scholars 2019, a program that recognizes 100 exceptional students from world’s leading schools in business, computer science, bioenginering and energy science. Congratulations Usua! [link]
- Prof. Kovscek to Lead New EFRC: Amongst the 2018 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) awarded by the DOE is Prof. Kosvcek’s Center for Mechanistic Control of Water-Hydrocarbon-Rock Interactions in Unconventional and Tight Oil Formations (CMC-UF). [link]
- SUETRI-A Students Among ERE Awards Recipients: SUETRI-A congratulates all 2018 ERE awards recipients, and especially our team members: Kuy Koh Yoo, Jie Yang, and Matthias Cremon for their Fellowship, Frank G. Miller, and Centennial Teaching Assistant awards, respectively. [link]
- New Techniques for Removing Carbon from The Atmosphere: SUETRI-A’s research was featured in Stanford News. In particular, some of the X-ray visualization work produced in our two CT scanners. For those who say we can’t visualize something, Tony says, “well, I beg to differ.” [link]
Events
- SUETRI-A Affiliates Meeting 2027, February 11-12, 2027
- SUETRI-A Affiliates Meeting 2026, February 12-13, 2026
- SUETRI-A Affiliates Meeting 2025, April 24-25, 2025