Michael Oristaglio

I am co-founder and inaugural director of the Energy Studies Multidisciplinary Academic Program at Yale and a research scientist and lecturer in the fields of energy geoscience and geophysical remote sensing. I also work as a manager for the Society of Exploration Geophysicists on projects designed to advance the science of applied seismology for public benefit. Before coming to Yale in 2009, I spent 25+ years as a scientist and research manager in the geophysical services industry with Schlumberger. 

From 2012 to 2016, I was executive director of Yale Climate & Energy Institute (YCEI), an initiative started in 2009 to bolster the university’s presence in STEM-based areas of climate and energy research. YCEI helped launch several new programs at Yale, including the Energy Sciences Institute, which focuses on renewable energy and carbon management; the Climate Change and Human Health Initiative at Yale School of Public Health; the Climate and History Initiative, a joint effort with the Whitney Humanities Center; and the Energy Studies program. After fulfilling its startup mission, YCEI closed on June 30, 2016.

My current research interests include: geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide by mineral carbonation, which converts CO2 into solid minerals; geophysical remote sensing for resource exploration and environmental monitoring; mathematics of seismic imaging and inversion; airborne geophysical remote sensing; technology and policy strategies for sustainable resource management.

As a project manager for SEAM, an arm of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), I supervise cooperative research projects aimed at advancing the science and technology of applied geophysics and at furthering the science of applied seismology for public benefit 

Since 2011, I have been project manager for three SEAM projects. From March 2011 to September 2016, I served as project manager for SEAM Land Seismic Challenges. This project engaged 22 oil and oilfield-service companies around the world in research to improve the accuracy, cost-effectiveness, and safety of seismic exploration for oil and gas reservoirs on land, where most of the world’s hydrocarbon resources are found and produced. Models developed in the project have helped to quantify the seismic hazard of earthquakes induced by hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

From March to September of 2016, I was the project manager for SEAM Time Lapse. This project was aimed at modeling all stages of development of petroleum reservoirs, from their discovery and characterization by geophysical remote sensing to their production, monitoring, and control by reservoir engineering. Methodologies developed in this effort have applications in other fields where the characterization, monitoring, and control of underground fluid flow is critical — for example, in the sustainable production of groundwater resources, in the long-term geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide (in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions), and in the safe storage of wastewater and other hazardous industrial fluids underground. SEAM Time Lapse was a collaborative research project with the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and the National Energy Technology Lab (NETL) of U.S. Department of Energy, under the auspices of the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA).

I am currently the project manager for SEAM Life of Field, which started in 2016 and now has nine companies building on the results of the Time Lapse project to study the management of large, complex petroleum reservoirs, including deepwater clastic reservoirs created by salt tectonics in the Gulf of Mexico and giant carbonate reservoirs of the Middle East and offshore Brazil. SEAM Life of Field will run through 2019.

Starting in October 2019, I will be the project manager for SEAM AI, which will explore applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning in applied geophysics for resource exploration, resource management, and  environmental monitoring.

Courses: G&G 274, Fossil Fuels & World Energy; G&G 275, Renewable Energy; G&G 105, Energy Technology and Society; ENRG 400, Senior Capstone Project Energy Studies