Annual Event Jointly Sponsored by EAS and Houston Geological Society Included Student Poster Session
Five University of Houston Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences (EAS) students were recognized for research and presentation excellence by a panel of volunteer judges from the EAS faculty and the Houston oil and environmental industry. The Robert E. Sheriff Lecture was held on November 1, 2021, from 5-8 p.m., as a fully virtual meeting that was attended by 103 online participants.
The organizing committee for the 2021 Sheriff event included Drs. Regina Capuano (chair), Daniel Hauptvogel, Paul Mann, Steve Naruk, and Jiajia Sun. Technical support was provided by Ngozi Onwuama of the UH College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Organizers from Houston Geological Society included Alyssa Cushing and Andrea Peoples.
The EAS student poster submissions were accompanied by five-minute-long videos prepared by the presenters who were also interviewed by the judges using Microsoft Teams. The submitted posters were grouped into three judging categories. There were 488 total page views of the virtual poster session.
Dr. Tom Lapen, chair of the EAS department, introduced the event by summarizing the accomplishments of the EAS department over the past year.
The Sheriff Lecture featured Dr. Sean Gulick, a research professor at the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas, who presented a one-hour lecture on the results from deepsea drilling into the Chicxulub impact crater in Mexico. His presentation, entitled "Life and Death by Impact: Drilling for Clues,” was followed by an extensive Q&A session.
During the event, Dr. William Dupre, an EAS associate professor since 1980 and EAS undergraduate student in the 1960s, was recognized as the 2021 Outstanding EAS Alumnus. Dupre was introduced by his longtime co-researcher and colleague, Dr. Henry Chafetz, an EAS emeritus professor.
Results of the Sheriff EAS Student Poster Competition
Advanced Ph.D. Category
First Place (Prize: $600)
Madeline D. Statkewicz (Ph.D. Candidate, Atmospheric Sciences), Changes in precipitation in Houston, Texas
Second Place (Prize: $500)
Daniella Easley (Ph.D. Candidate, Geology), Distinguishing petroleum source rock acmes across northern South America: An application to evaluate the potential of the Albian to Maastrichtian Guyana Basin
Third Place (Prize: $400)
Sean Romito (Ph.D. Candidate, Geology), AI-assisted structural interpretation of complex faulting and salt on the shelf and slope of the Camamu basin, northeastern Brazil
M.S./First-Year Ph.D. Category
First Place (Prize: $400)
Bryan Moore (M.S. Candidate, Geology), The unresolved origin of source rocks for hydrocarbons in the Barbados accretionary prism: squeezed from sources within prism or derived from organic-rich blocks scraped off the downgoing plate?
Undergraduate Category
First Place (Prize: $350)
Steven Ramirez (B.S. Candidate, Geophysics), Searching for slabs within the Earth’s mantle predicted by higher-confidence Pacific plate reconstructions
Thanks to All Our Volunteer Judges
The organizers and student presenters would like to thank the following volunteer judges of the student poster session for sharing their time and expertise with the presenters.
From the EAS Faculty:
Dr. Lorenzo Colli, Dr. Julia Wellner, Dr. Bernhard Rappenglueck, Dr. Minako Righter, and Gary Guthrie
From the Houston-Area Geosciences Community:
Sebabrata Sakar (Schlumberger), Dr. Shawn Wright (EAS Ph.D., 2015, now at Hess), Dr. Philip Ball (Total), Carolina Mejia (EAS M.S. 2015, now at ResPhys, LLC ), Dr. Mark Richardson (Exxon, retired), Dr. Changrui Gong (Apache), Dr. Barbara Hill (Schlumberger), Dr. Andrew Pulham (ESACT, Inc.), Di Chen (EAS M.S. 2012, now at Schlumberger), Courtney Anzalone (EAS B.S. 2012, now at Schlumberger), Dr. John Solum (Shell), Dr. Elias Haddad (Schlumberger), Jagadish Chandra (LTI), and Soumia Alem (Schlumberger)