Team

Dr Regina Sander

Team Leader, Senior Research Engineer

Regina has a PhD in Petroleum Engineering from UNSW, Sydney. She has 10+ years experience in unconventional gas engineering, in particular coal seam gas and shale gas, and techno-economic modelling of gas production and gas storage. Regina’s research interests include enhanced recovery and storage processes in unconventional reservoirs, coal mine safety and fugitive emissions management and their economics, as well as impacts of unconventional gas production on groundwater.

Senior Research Scientist

Mohammad holds a PhD in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Adelaide, along with a M.Sc. in Reservoir Engineering and a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Tehran Polytechnic. Over his academic and professional career, he has developed research interests in the field of computational mathematics, in particular, machine learning, optimisation, simulation, inverse modelling and uncertainty quantification, with applications to an expansive range of engineering problems, including responsible oil&gas, hydrogen, coalbed methane and CCS. He also actively promotes the fourth industrial revolution with applications to sustainable subsurface resources. Thus far, Mohammad has co-authored more than 50 papers in reputable journals and conferences. Mohammad also has a passion for education and mentorship, and he has supervised over 50 honours students and four PhD students to the completion, with several prestigious awards.

Research Fellow

Lingping is a postdoctoral research fellow at CSIRO Energy and has a PhD from Curtin University in Petroleum Engineering. He has extensive experience in the modelling of geochemical reactions in subsurface environments. His main research interests and expertise lie in Underground Hydrogen Storage (UHS) and CO2 geo-sequestration in depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs. He is performing geochemical and microbial modelling with a variety of experimental tools to investigate the impact of fluid-rock interactions on the potential of long-term large-scale UHS and designing technical screening tools to identify the risk/potential of UHS particularly in Australia. He is also working on geochemical reactions induced White (natural) H2 and Orange H2 from lab experiments and numerical simulation.

Senior Reservoir Engineer

Nick holds a Masters in Petroleum Engineering from UNSW. His experience includes laboratory based research involving core analysis, adsorption/diffusion studies, and investigating microbial gas generation under reservoir conditions. He also undertakes research examining groundwater impacts from unconventional gas production and onshore gas prospectivity using numerical simulation, and has been involved in enhanced coalbed methane field studies.

Senior Research Technician

Michael manages the laboratories of the Unconventional Gas Reservoir Engineering Team. Michael’s skills and expertise include pressure vessel and equipment design, LabVIEW programming, electronics, 3D design (Autodesk), data processing, automation, instrumentation plumbing (Swagelok), complex sample recovery and preparation, CNC and conventional machining and welding. His work has been acknowledged through numerous industry awards.

Engineer

Deasy holds a Bachelor in Chemical Engineering and Science from The University of Melbourne. Her skills include chemical analysis utilizing various instruments and techniques, such as ion chromatography, gas chromatography, and spectrometry, experimental rock characterisation, and data analysis.

Senior Research Projects Officer (Experimental Engineer)

Stephen has a Bachelor of Science (Applied Physics) from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. His expertise includes designing, developing, and adapting experimental methods and systems, in particular with respect to data acquisition, control (automation), and data analysis. He has broad research interests, and has primarily been involved in bulk material analysis, drilling mechanics, orientation estimation, and rock mechanics research over his career.

Senior Principal Research Scientist

Luke has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Queensland. He has over 30 years research experience in modelling and field characterization of fluid flow in the sub-surface and more than 80 publications on a wide range of modelling and experimental problems. His research is focused on gas migration processes within coal seam and shale reservoirs and coupled flow and geomechanical processes.

Senior Principal Research Scientist

Zhejun has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Oklahoma State University, USA and is the Australian Research Magazine’s 2020 research leader in the field of Oil, Petroleum and Natural Gas with more than 8,500 citations from over 250 publications. Zhejun’s research is focused on gas storage and flow behaviour in unconventional gas reservoirs, including coal, shale and tight sandstone. His work combines experimental, mathematical and numerical methods, and applies thermodynamics, fluid dynamics and rock mechanics from laboratory to field scale. His research interests also include coal mine gas drainage, enhanced gas production and CO2 storage.

Principal Research Engineer

Meng holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China. Meng’s research is focused on transport mechanisms in porous rocks and various fundamental issues in relation to reservoir engineering, especially with respect to gas production in unconventional reservoirs. His research interests also include CO2-sequestration in geological formations and mechanical properties of rocks.