First Vice-President 2002-2003
The Society of Exploration Geophysicists
Wayne
Pennington
Wayne
Pennington has been a member of SEG since 1979, joining as a new assistant
professor at The University of Texas at Austin. Since that time, he has
worked at Marathon Oil Company’s Petroleum Technology Center in
Littleton, Colorado, and, for the past eight years, as a professor of
geophysical engineering at Michigan Technological University, his current
position. He spent the past academic year as a visiting scientist at Schlumberger
Cambridge Research in England, where he wrote a chapter on "Reservoir
Geophysics" for the new edition of the Petroleum Engineering Handbook
to be published in 2003 by SPE, and cochaired SPWLA's recent "Seismic
Petrophysics" Topical Conference.
His education includes degrees
in geology and geophysics from Princeton, Cornell, and the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, with time between degrees at Lamont-Doherty Geological
Observatory. His early work in seismicity and tectonics took him to Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Mexico, and Colombia, experiencing earthquakes that cost
hundreds of lives, the largest at magnitude 7.7. He continues to be involved
in earthquake seismology as a reservoir monitoring tool and as a way to
interest young people in the earth sciences.
Wayne's long record of participation
in SEG activities includes two years as chairman of the Development and
Production Committee, four years as associate editor for GEOPHYSICS, four
years on the Editorial Board for THE LEADING
EDGE, chairing the 1992 D&P Forum on Monitoring
Reservoir Changes Over Time, serving as guest editor for several issues
of THE LEADING EDGE,
and as an author of papers in THE LEADING
EDGE and GEOPHYSICS.
Position
Statement
I find work to be the most interesting at the place where three disciplines
-- geophysics, formation evaluation, and reservoir engineering -- meet.
My expertise is in geophysics, but my applications are in all three fields.
As such, my home society is SEG, but my activities are also in SPWLA,
SPE, and AAPG, among others. I consider cross-disciplinary education and
interaction to be an important aspect of most geophysicists' careers,
and encourage it among my students and associates. Cross-society interaction
is not easily accomplished, except at the grassroots level, where I have
been most active. I intend to assist SEG, as an international society,
in working more closely with its sister societies to the benefit of SEG
members; of course, much of the interaction will continue to be made by
individual workers and committees, rather than the society leaderships.
It is important that SEG encourage
and support its members in their cross-disciplinary activities, and to
work with other societies to maintain an open international approach to
integration, interaction, and education. This includes giving authority
to the committees within SEG to continue their interactions and to enhance
them, removing roadblocks that may exist, and actively encouraging, assisting,
and developing new activities.
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