Process

Deputy Director, Earth Sciences Division

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Dr. Birkholzer joined Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1994 as a post-doctoral fellow and has since been promoted to the second-highest scientist rank at this research facility. He currently serves as the deputy director of the Earth Sciences Division and as the program lead for the nuclear waste program, and also leads a research group working on environmental impacts related to geologic carbon sequestration and other subsurface activities. His area of expertise is subsurface hydrology with emphasis on understanding and modeling coupled fluid, gas, solute and heat transport in complex subsurface systems, such as heterogeneous sediments or fractured rock. His recent research was mostly in the context of risk/performance assessment, e.g., for geologic disposal of radioactive wastes and for geologic CO2 storage. Dr. Birkholzer has authored about 90 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and has over 230 conference publications and abstracts.

Assistant Professor

Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford University

Dr. Brandt is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford University. His research focuses on reducing the greenhouse gas impacts of energy production and consumption, with a focus on fossil energy systems. Research interests include life cycle assessment of transportation fuels, and the energy efficiency of energy extraction and refining systems. A particular interest is in unconventional fossil fuel resources such as oil shale, oil sands, and tight oil. He also leads research into computational optimization techniques as applied to the design and operation of CO₂ capture and storage systems for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from fossil energy consumption. Dr. Brandt received his PhD and MS degrees from the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.

Consulting Petroleum Geologist

DonGautier L.L.C.

With a career spanning almost four decades, Dr. Donald L. Gautier is an internationally recognized leader and author in the theory and practice of petroleum resource analysis. As a principal architect of modern USGS assessment methodology, Gautier's accomplishments include leadership of the first comprehensive evaluation of undiscovered oil and gas resources north of the Arctic Circle, the first national assessment of United States petroleum resources to be fully documented in a digital environment, and the first development of performance-based methodology for assessment of unconventional petroleum resources such as shale gas or light, tight oil. He was lead scientist for the San Joaquin Basin and Los Angeles Basin Resource Assessment projects. His recent work has focused on the analysis of growth of reserves in existing fields and on the development of probabilistic resource/cost functions. Gautier is the author of more than 200 technical publications, most of which concern the evaluation of undiscovered and undeveloped petroleum resources. He holds a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Colorado.

President

Pacific Institute

Dr. Peter H. Gleick is an internationally recognized environmental scientist and co-founder of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. His research addresses the critical connections between water and human health, the hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, privatization and globalization, and international security and conflicts over water resources. Dr. Gleick was named a MacArthur "genius" Fellow in October 2003 for his work on water, climate, and security. In 2006 Dr. Gleick was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. Dr. Gleick's work has redefined water from the realm of engineers to the world of social justice, sustainability, human rights, and integrated thinking. His influence on the field of water has been long and deep: he developed one of the earliest assessments of the impacts of climate change on water resources, defined and explored the links between water and international security and local conflict, and developed a comprehensive argument in favor of basic human needs for water and the human right to water - work that has been used by the UN and in human rights court cases. He pioneered the concept of the "soft path for water," developed the idea of "peak water," and has written about the need for a "local water movement." Dr. Gleick received a B.S. in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the Energy and Resources Group of the University of California, Berkeley. He serves on the boards of numerous journals and organizations, and is the author of many scientific papers and ten books, including Bottled & Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water and the biennial water report, The World's Water, published by Island Press (Washington, D.C.).

Senior Scientist, Lead Senior Scientist

Environmental Defense Fund

Robert Harriss is a Lead Senior Scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, with a primary focus on characterizing and mitigating fugitive methane leakage from the United States natural gas system. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Houston Advanced Research Center and holds adjunct professorships at Texas A&M–Galveston and the Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Houston. Other career positions have included Senior/Project Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center, Director of Earth Sciences at NASA Headquarters, Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and senior faculty positions at Florida State University, University of New Hampshire, and Texas A&M. Dr. Harriss currently serves on a variety of volunteer scientific activities including the current NASA Science Definition Team for the Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment, CCST Independent Review of Scientific and Technical Information on Advanced Well Stimulation Technologies in California, and as a Contributing Editor of Environment Magazine.

Department Head, Professor and holder of the Noble Chair, Petroleum Engineering Department

Texas A&M University

Dr. A. D. Hill is Professor, holder of the Noble Endowed Chair, and Department Head of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University. Previously, he taught for 22 years at The University of Texas at Austin after spending five years in industry. He holds a B. S. degree from Texas A&M University and M. S. and Ph. D. degrees from The University of Texas at Austin, all in chemical engineering. He is the author of the Society of Petroleum Engineering (SPE) monograph, Production Logging: Theoretical and Interpretive Elements, co-author of the textbook, Petroleum Production Systems (1st and 2nd editions), co-author of an SPE book, Multilateral Wells, and author of over 170 technical papers and five patents. He has been a Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Distinguished Lecturer, has served on numerous SPE committees and was founding chairman of the Austin SPE Section. He was named a Distinguished Member of SPE in 1999 and received the SPE Production and Operations Award in 2008. In 2012, he was one of the two inaugural winners of the SPE Pipeline Award, which recognizes faculty, who have fostered petroleum engineering Ph.Ds. to enter academia. He currently serves on the SPE Editorial Review Committee, the SPE Global Training Committee, and the SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference Program Committee. Professor Hill is an expert in the areas of production engineering, well completions, well stimulation, production logging, and complex well performance (horizontal and multilateral wells), and has presented lectures and courses and consulted on these topics throughout the world.

Disclosure of Conflict of Interest: Prof. Dan Hill

In accordance with the practice of the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST), CCST makes best efforts to ensure that no individual appointed to serve on a committee has a conflict of interest that is relevant to the functions to be performed, unless such conflict is promptly and publicly disclosed and CCST determines that the conflict is unavoidable. A conflict of interest refers to an interest, ordinarily financial, of an individual that could be directly affected by the work of the committee. An objective determination is made for each provisionally appointed committee member whether or not a conflict of interest exists given the facts of the individual's financial and other interests, and the task being undertaken by the committee. A determination of a conflict of interest for an individual is not an assessment of that individual's actual behavior or character or ability to act objectively despite the conflicting interest.

We have concluded that for this committee to accomplish the tasks for which it was established its membership must include among others, individuals with research and expertise in the area of acid treatments for petroleum wells who have studied oil and gas industry operations in the United States and are internationally recognized for this expertise. Acid treatment is of particular public concern in California and is the subject of regulation under SB4.

To meet the need for this expertise and experience, Dr. Dan Hill is proposed for appointment to the committee even though we have concluded that he has a conflict of interest because of investments he holds and research services provided by his employer.

As his biographical summary makes clear, Dr. Hill is a recognized expert in petroleum reservoir engineering with many publications to wit. He is also known as one of the world's key experts in acid treatment.

After an extensive search, we have been unable to find another individual with the equivalent combination of expertise in acid treatment as Dr. Hill, who does not have a similar conflict of interest. Therefore, we have concluded that this potential conflict is unavoidable.

Executive Director, Energy and Sustainability

UC Davis

Amy Myers Jaffe is a leading expert on global energy policy, geopolitical risk, and energy and sustainability. Jaffe serves as executive director for Energy and Sustainability at University of California, Davis with a joint appointment to the Graduate School of Management and Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS). At ITS-Davis, Jaffe heads the fossil fuel component of Next STEPS (Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways). She is associate editor (North America) for the academic journal Energy Strategy Reviews. Prior to joining UC Davis, Jaffe served as director of the Energy Forum and Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies at Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Jaffe's research focuses on oil and natural gas geopolitics, strategic energy policy, corporate investment strategies in the energy sector, and energy economics. She was formerly senior editor and Middle East analyst for Petroleum Intelligence Weekly. Jaffe is widely published, including as co-author of Oil, Dollars, Debt and Crises: The Global Curse of Black Gold (Cambridge University Press, January 2010 with Mahmoud El-Gamal). She served as co-editor of Energy in the Caspian Region: Present and Future (Palgrave, 2002) and Natural Gas and Geopolitics: From 1970 to 2040 (Cambridge University Press, 2006). Jaffe was the honoree for Esquire's annual 100 Best and Brightest in the contribution to society category (2005) and Elle Magazine's Women for the Environment (2006) and holds the excellence in writing prize from the International Association for Energy Economics (1994).

Geologist

Earth Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Preston Jordan is a Staff Research Associate in the Earth Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). He received his B.A. in Geology in 1988 and M.S. Eng.Sci. in Geotechnical Engineering in 1997, both from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a California Professional Geologist, Certified Hydrogeologist and Certified Engineering Geologist. Prior to joining LBNL, Jordan worked at a geotechnical engineering consultancy. Since joining LBNL, he has performed paleoseismic research, characterized the geology and hydrogeology of the lab for environmental remediation and conducted contaminant remediation pilot tests. Over the last decade his research focus has been geologic carbon storage with a particular emphasis on risk assessment. He has published on worker safety and well blowout and fault leakage risk, and participated in risk reviews of geologic carbon storage projects. His risk review of one of the world’s few industrial- scale geologic carbon storage projects led to reduction of injection pressures. He recently was the PI for a multi-year research project for the California Energy Commission regarding wide-scale pressure changes in response to historic oil and gas production in Kern County for the purpose of gaining insight into pressure changes in response to prospective geologic carbon storage. This involved dataset assembly and database construction using results of searches of California Department of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources records.

Professor, Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering

University of Texas, Austin

Larry W. Lake is a professor of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and director of the Center for Petroleum Asset Risk Management. He holds B.S.E and Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Arizona State University and Rice University. Dr. Lake has published widely; he is the author or co-author of more than 100 technical papers, the editor of 3 bound volumes and author or co-author of four textbooks. He has been teaching at UT for 34 years before which he worked for Shell Development Company in Houston, Texas. He was chairman of the PGE department twice, from 1989 to 1997 and from 2008 to 2010. He formerly held the Shell Distinguished Chair and the W.A. (Tex) Moncrief, Jr. Centennial Endowed Chair in Petroleum Engineering. He currently holds the W.A. (Monty) Moncrief Centennial Chair in Petroleum Engineering. Dr. Lake has served on the Board of Directors for the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) as well as on several of its committees; he has twice been an SPE distinguished lecturer. Dr. Lake is a member of the US National Academy of Engineers and won the 1996 Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal of the SPE. He won the 1999 Dad's Award for excellence in teaching undergraduates at The University of Texas and the 1999 Hocott Award in the College of Engineering for excellence in research. He also is a member of the 2001 Engineering Dream Team awarded by the Texas Society of Professional Engineers. He is an SPE Honorary Member.

Executive Director

Physicians Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy

Dr. Shonkoff is the executive director of the energy science and policy institute, PSE Healthy Energy. Dr. Shonkoff is also a visiting scholar in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, and an affiliate in the Environment Energy Technology Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley California. An environmental and public health scientist by training, he has more than 15 years of experience in water, air, climate, and population health research. Dr. Shonkoff completed his PhD in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management and his MPH in epidemiology in the School of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a contributing author to the Human Health chapter of The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). He has worked and published on topics related to the intersection of energy, air pollution, water quality, climate, and human health from scientific and policy perspectives. Dr. Shonkoff's research also focuses on the development of the effectiveness of anthropogenic climate change mitigation policies that generate socioeconomic and health co-benefits. Dr. Shonkoff's current work focuses on the human health, environmental and climate dimensions of oil and gas development in the United States and abroad.

Vice Chancellor of Research

University of California, Merced

Dr. Traina is the Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development at the University of California, Merced, where he holds the Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences and Geology. He serves as a Board Member of the California Council of Science and Technology. Prior to joining UC Merced in 2002 as a Founding Faculty member and the Founding Director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, Dr. Traina was a faculty member for 17 years at The Ohio State University, with concomitant appointments in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, the Department of Earth Science and Geology, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Microbiology and Chemistry. He has served on the National Research Council's Standing Committee on Earth Resources. In 1997 - 1998, he held the Cox Visiting Professorship in the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University. Dr. Traina's past and current research has dealt with the fate, transformation, and transport of contaminants in soils and natural waters, with an emphasis on radionuclides, heavy metals, and mining wastes. Dr. Traina holds a B.S. in soil resource management and a Ph.D. in soil chemistry. He is a fellow of the Soil Science Society of American and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as a recipient of the Clay Scientist Award of the Clay Minerals Society.