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EOR: Enhancing Our Research

September 21, 2015

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UT PGE professor Gary Pope gives undergraduate students the opportunity to receive coveted, high-level research experience in some of the country's best EOR academic labs.

On the second day in his new position, UT Austin President Greg Fenves wrote an op-ed about his vision for the university. One of his main points hit on the value of “innovating excellence by strengthening UT Austin as a place where undergraduates routinely interact and collaborate with faculty members, graduate students and researchers who are making important discoveries.” Pope could not agree more with the importance of this statement. He has been a trailblazer for undergraduate research in UT PGE for almost three decades, leading the largest group in the department.

Pope, whose undergraduate research program began with two students and has now grown to more than 15, started the initiative to better prepare undergraduate students for the oil and gas industry. The program offers a means for students to apply the information they garner in the classroom into hands-on, meaningful lab application. The benefit to Pope’s research team is incredible as well.

(Dr. Gary Pope)

“The impact of these students helped to double my research program’s productivity – the students have made a tremendous impact,” said Pope. “They work hard and are willing to come on the weekends or nights to help us oversee experiments. They have strong initiative as well, taking on projects by themselves or working directly with me on some projects.”

The structure of the program pairs undergraduate students one-on-one with graduate student mentors. The goal of the program is having undergraduates working close to – or at – a graduate level by the time they graduate from the department. Ideally, students contribute to the program for at least two years since it takes months to learn basic laboratory research methods and techniques.

Acceptance into UT PGE’s largest undergraduate research program is no easy feat. Less than half of the students who apply are accepted. All candidates are interviewed for the position and most of the students have a GPA above 3.5.

“It’s a coveted position,” said Pope. “The largest benefit is the opportunity to understand experiments and data on a higher, more in-depth level by working with leading researchers. The students do not receive this type of experience sitting in a classroom or behind a computer in an office.”

(Travis Pitcher and Lauren Churchwell)

UT PGE Senior Travis Pitcher, who has been working in Pope’s labs for more than a year on surfactant floods for chemical enhanced oil recovery,  appreciates the undergraduate research experience. In the spring of 2015, he took Dr. Mohanty’s Reservoir II class. After class he would head up to the fourth floor labs to conduct experiments using materials from real oil reservoirs from all over the world. “I feel better prepared for my career as the research is a nice complement to the classwork knowledge,” said Pitcher.

The undergraduate research assistants working in Pope’s labs come from several engineering and science disciplines, but most of them are petroleum engineering students. Pope strategically made that organizational decision, since the graduate students and post docs mainly come from other disciplines. The researchers benefit from the interdisciplinary interactions as they address challenges from different lenses.

Lauren Churchwell, a senior majoring in biochemistry at UT Austin, who will spend two years in the group by the time she graduates in May, enjoys working with petroleum engineers and bringing a strong chemistry background to the project.

“I have a different way of looking at experiments,” said Churchwell. “You receive a different set of important skills in engineering and natural sciences. The projects I have worked on in Dr. Pope’s group are highly chemical based, so the petroleum engineers know a lot about the rocks and reservoirs and I know a lot about the chemistry side.”

Not only do students receive coveted research knowledge, but one of Pope’s priorities is teaching the importance of effective communication through strong verbal and written skills. Pope is an advocate for his students producing quality reports. “Every experiment has a written plan that is vetted with up to 15 iterations before the experiment starts and then once a report is compiled, it will have several iterations,” said Pope. If a paper or patent comes out of the report, students will receive credit if they have contributed an original idea.

Pope foresees the interest in his undergraduate research program continuing to grow through word-of-mouth and advertising. As more professors in the department develop robust undergraduate research programs because they see the value established by Pope’s program, more students will start using their time outside of the classroom inside of the lab.