People

Principal Investigator

D. Nicolas Espinoza Associate Professor 200 E Dean Keeton CPE#5.104A phone: +1 512 471 8280 email: espinoza@austin.utexas.edu

Postdoctoral Researchers and Research Scientists

	Clay Wood Postdoctoral Researcher in Geophysics and Geomechanics Co-advised with Prof. Tisato email: clay.wood@jsg.utexas.edu
	Shuman Yu Postdoctoral Researcher in Mudrock Geomechanics email: shuman.yu@austin.utexas.edu
	Zhao Xia Postdoctoral Researcher in Geologic Hydrogen email: zhao.xia@austin.utexas.edu
	Gabriel Gallardo Giozza Postdoctoral Researcher in Seal Integrity email: gggiozza@utexas.edu

PhD and MS Students

	Mohamed Awad PhD Candidate email: mohamed.awad@utexas.edu
	Jinkyo Lee PhD Student email: jinkyolee@utexas.edu
	Manav PAtel PhD Student email: manav.patel-1@utexas.edu
	Renato Poli PhD Student email: rpoli@utexas.edu
	Tirtharaj Mukhopadhyay MS Student email: tirtharaj@utexas.edu

Undergraduate

Collaborators and Visiting Scholars

Former Members

2025
	Yuntian Teng Postdoctoral Researcher Currently at Pacific Northwestern National Laboratory
2024
	Matthew L. McLean PhD in Petroleum Engineering Currently at Itasca
	Agustin Garbino MS in Petroleum Engineering Currently at ResFrac Corporation
	Javier Guerrero MS in Petroleum Engineering Currently at OXY
2023
	Kiseok Kim Postdoctoral Researcher Currently Assistant Professor at Texas A&M
2022
	Zihao Li PhD in Petroleum Engineering Currently Fulltime at ExxonMobil
2020
	Xiaojin Zheng PhD in Petroleum Engineering Currently Postdoc at Princeton University
	Toma Takahashi MS in Petroleum Engineering Currently Fulltime at JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation
	Gabrielle Jacoby BS in Petroleum Engineering Currently Reservoir Engineer at ConocoPhillips Gabrielle’s website
2019
	Zhuang Sun PhD in Petroleum Engineering Currently at Dassault Systemes
	Agustin Sosa Massaro Visiting Scholar from ITBA (Argentina) Now Researcher at ITBA
	Yun Chen PhD Visiting Student from University of Western Australia
	Tong Liu Visiting PhD Student from CUMT
	Jeffery Luo MS in Petroleum Engineering Currently at Baker Hughes
2018
	Quentin Buck BS Mechanical Engineering Visiting student from Washington State University
	Lawrence Chen BS Petroleum Engineering Undergraduate Research Assistant
	Xiongyu Jasper Chen Postdoctoral Researcher Currently at CPGE
	Eric Guiltinan PhD in Geological Sciences Co-advised with Prof. Bayani Cardenas Currently at Los Alamos National Laboratory
	Hojung Jung PhD Candidate Currently at ExxonMobil
	Matthew Ramos PhD in Geological Sciences Co-advised with Dr. Steve Laubach Currently at Chevron
	Jenny Ryu MS in Petroleum Engineering Co-advised with Prof. Matt Balhoff Currently at XTO Energy
	Igor Shovkun PhD in Petroleum Engineering Currently Postdoctoral Researcher at Stanford University
2017
	Michael Aman MS in Petroleum Engineering
	Rebecca C. Bussard Undergraduate Research Assistant BS in Physics – Pennsylvania State University
	Luis A. Hernandez-Uribe Undergraduate Research Assistant Currently PhD Student in Geotechnical Engineering (UT Austin)
2016
	Omar Makni MS Student Visiting Scholar from ENSTA ParisTech
	Reynaldo Torres Undergraduate Research Assistant BS in Petroleum Engineering

Vacancies

• PhD students: all students must apply first to our department to be considered (apply here: https://pge.utexas.edu/graduate/admissions). We select students from the pool of applicants that have been admitted to the program. Send me an email if you have any questions but your best shot is just apply to the link above. Applications by email are not taken.
• Postdoctoral researchers: stay alert to announcements in my twitter or linkedin pages.