The premiere dates have been determined, and now world-class geoscience lectures will be beaming your way – available, literally, to anywhere on Earth where you happen to be.
AAPG’s acclaimed Distinguished Lecture series will begin this month – starting with the season’s designated SEG-AAPG joint DL – and will continue throughout the fall and early winter seasons.
Those lecture premieres, available to all free of charge via the AAPG website, promise talks that are not just compelling and interesting, but relevant for the profession, the science and, in some cases, even the culture.
The real-time talks are hosted by geoscientists with expertise in the respective subjects. All begin at noon CDT/CST time, and are followed by an extended Q&A period with the lecturers.
The schedule for the premiere talks is:
- Oct. 17 – Ge Jin, associate professor in geophysics, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colo. He previously was a research geophysicist at ConocoPhillips.
He also is this season’s SEG-AAPG Joint Distinguished Lecturer, and his topic is “Distributed Fiber-Optic Sensing Applications for Oil and Gas: A Non-Seismic Version for Geophysicists.”
- Nov. 12 – Cynthia Liutkus-Pierce, department chair and professor of geology at Appalachian State University, Boone, N.C. She also is lead scientist of the Engare Sero footprint project – a collaborative team of geologists, paleoanthropologists, geochronologists and volcanologists studying the dynamics of a group of early Homo sapiens who made hundreds of footprints in a volcanic mudflow deposit in northern Tanzania about 20,000 years ago. Her topic: “Exploring the Early Miocene: Uncovering the Environmental Roots of Our Primate Ancestors.”
(She also offers the lecture, “Reconstructing a Late Pleistocene East African Paleolandscape Using the Footprints of Our Ancestors,” available to groups by request.)
- Nov. 19 – Andreas Busch, professor of Earth sciences at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. He also is head of the GeoEnergy research group and acting academic co-lead of the Lyell Centre, an interface between earth and marine sciences. His topic: “Geological CO2 Storage Integrity – Should We Be Worried?”
- Dec. 3 – Fernanda Raggio, exploration vice president, YPF, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Previously she was vice president of upstream conventional E&P, exploration executive manager and technical disciplines manager; and participated in management programs at the IAE Business School, Di Tella and San Andrés universities. Her talk: “Shaping New Leadership in an Evolving Energy Business.”
- Dec. 17 – Linda Price, senior principal, ExxonMobil, Houston, and the 2023 AAPG Norman H. Foster Explorer Award recipient, presented for outstanding achievement in petroleum exploration. Her topic: “Next Step in Geoscience Skill Development – Revitalizing Regional Frameworks, Systematic Critical Thinking and Collaborative Interpretation Approaches.”
- Dec. 19 – Lesli Wood, Weimer Distinguished Chair and professor, geology and geological engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colo. She’s a recipient of AAPG’s Robert R. Berg Outstanding Research Award, and before joining CSM had industry experience with Amoco and was with the Bureau of Economic Geology, Austin, Texas, where she originated and directed the Quantitative Clastics Laboratory research group. Her lecture is “The Shelf is a Dangerous Place: Surfing the Cretaceous Seaways.”
(She also offers the lecture, “The Future of Geoscience: Your Role in Saving the Earth,” available to groups by request.)
- Coming soon: An official date for a lecture by Geoffrey Ellis is yet to be announced. He is research geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, as well as project chief of the USGS’ Potential for Geologic Hydrogen Gas Resources project, and affiliated faculty member at the Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colo. His topic: “Natural Hydrogen: An Overlooked Potential Energy Resource.”
All DL premiere talks are recorded and added to the website for on-demand viewing.
Also, a specific virtual DL talk can be arranged for a group setting, including the Q&A session.
AAPG’s Distinguished Lecture program, supported by the AAPG Foundation, is regarded as the Association’s flagship initiative for offering expert geoscience presentations to geologists and geoscientists around the world.
The program is among the Association’s “premier programs for sharing geoscience information and developments,” DL Committee co-chair Jonathan Allen said.
AAPG Foundation Jim McGhay echoed that view, saying the DL program “is critical to our mission of ensuring the future of our profession.
“It brings the best and current thinking to our practicing geoscientists,” McGhay said, “thus elevating their ability to contribute meaningfully to finding solutions.”
Putting It Together
AAPG’s DL program has offered expert presentations to geologists and geoscientists around the world annually, free of charge, since its creation in 1941, thanks to generous Foundation support.
The program is administered by AAPG staff, including Programs Team lead Susie Nolen and coordinator Adriane Hausher.
For most of the program’s existence the lectures were scheduled on face-to-face tours – first nationally, but then encompassing international locales. That practice was halted during the global pandemic and are still challenged by health concerns, company policies and speaker schedules, which impact and restrict travel availability.
Talks are available by request on a limited basis in a live setting, and the DL Committee and staff continue to seek ways for more face-to-face opportunities today. (See accompanying box.)
“In the last couple of years, the Committee has been working toward having our lecturers hit the road once again,” Allen said. “Now, the program won’t look like the DL tours that occurred in the past, but we feel one of the most valuable aspects of the program is the in-person interaction our speakers have with audiences in academic institutions and local geologic societies.”
Lecturers are selected annually by the DL Committee, which strives to have “a large, evergreen pool of potential speakers, who are experts in as diverse range of topics,” Allen said.
Along with Allen, this year’s Committee members are Julia Wellner (co-chair), Irene Arango, Julia Gale, Ashley Harris, Allegra Hosford, Juan Lovecchio, Dwandari Ralanarko, Molly Turko and Tongwei Zhang.
For more program and speaker information, or to arrange an in-person lecture or a live virtual talk with a speaker, visit the AAPG website (www.aapg.org/career/training/in-person/distinguished-lecturers), or contact [email protected].