University of Wyoming Professor Wins Award

An assistant professor at the University of Wyoming has received a prestigious international award for his research on oil and gas. Dario Grana, assistant professor at the UW School of Energy Resources in the department of geology and geophysics and the department of chemical and petroleum engineering, received the 2014 Eni Award in Rome this week from the president of Italy for developing a new method to obtain information about oil and gas reservoirs using seismic techniques. Also receiving the award were Stanford University researchers Tapan Mukerji, Gary Mavko and Jack Dvorkin.

Seismic surveying techniques have played a big role in the exploration and production of oil and gas because it allows scientists to visualize and map the subsurface. The UW-Stanford team identified correlations between the physical properties of rocks and fluids and experimental data, to develop an innovative interpretive model for quantifying oil and gas reservoirs.

The Eni Award is an international prize recognizing research and development in the fields of energy and the environment. This year a 23-person award committee selected honorees from four categories: “New Frontiers of Hydrocarbons”; “Renewable and Non-Conventional Energy”; “Protection of the Environment”; and “Debut in Research.” Grana won the award in “New Frontiers of Hydrocarbons”.

Grana earned his PhD at Stanford before coming to UW. He is one of the authors of a rocks physics textbook that was released internationally earlier this year. He has developed a new graduate level course called “Rock Physics and Reservoir Modeling” at the University of Wyoming.