Faculty
Research Investigators
Petroleum Engineering
Dr. Andreas Eckert | EMRGe Research Center Director
Associate Professor in Petroleum Engineering
Sr. Research Investigator
- eckertan@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-4876
- 328 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Specialization:
Geomechanical Simulation Laboratory
Research Interests:
Numerical simulation of buckle folding, Numerical simulation of rock fabric evolution, Fracture initiation, Salt tectonics, Deformation bands, and Wellbore & reservoir geomechanics
Personal Website:
Dr. Baojun Bai
Professor in Petroleum Engineering
Research Investigator
- baib@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-4016
- 161 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Research Interests:
Conformance Control to Reduce Excess Water Production Using Gels (especially preformed particle gels), CO2 and CO2 foam flooding, Shale Gas Development, Geological carbon sequestration, Reservoir numerical simulation, and Multiphase flow in porous media
Personal Website:
Dr. Mingzhen Wei
Assistant Professor in Petroleum Engineering
Research Investigator
- weim@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-4657
- 330 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Research Interests:
Her research interests include data mining and data quality enhancement, application development to support digital oilfield initiations, and reservoir engineering study for unconventional oil and gas development.
Personal Website:
Geological Engineering
Dr. Leslie Gertsch
Associate Professor in Geological Engineering
Sr. Research Investigator
- gertschl@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-7278
- 129 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409 and 203 Rock Mechanics, 1006 Kingshighway Street, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Specialization:
Space Resources Laboratory, Rock Testing Laboratory, Mechanical Rock Fragmentation Laboratory
Research Interests:
Extra-Terrestrial Mining, Rock Fragmentation, Mine Planning, Fluid Flow through Fractured Rock, Sustainable Resource Production, Mine Autonomous Systems
Personal Website:
Dr. Katherine Grote
Associate Professor in Geological Engineering
- grotekr@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-4100
- 157 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409 and 203 Rock Mechanics, 1006 Kingshighway Street, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Research Interests:
Groundwater and near-surface geophysics, specifically in applying these techniques to promote sustainable agriculture and environmental protection.
Publications:
Dr. Jeremy Maurer
Assistant Professor in Geological Engineering
Research Investigator
- jmaurer@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-4852
- 326 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Research Interests:
Geodesy, earthquake and fault mechanics, induced seismicity, inverse problems and modeling, uncertainty quantification, crustal deformation, and geophysical methods.
Resume/CV:
Personal Website:
Dr. Kenneth Boyko
Assistant Professor in Geological Engineering
- kjbwwd@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 368-8459
- 214 Rock Mechanics, 1006 Kingshighway Street, Rolla, MO 65409
Research Interests:
Subterranean time-domain LiDAR applications
Geology & Geophysics
Dr. Stephen Gao | Center for High-Performance Computing Research Director
Department Chair, Professor in Geology & Geophysics
Sr. Research Investigator
- sgao@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-6676
- B-35 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Specialization:
Dr. Gao is an earthquake seismologist with expertise in imaging the Earth's interior structure and characterizing rock properties using elastic waves produced by natural or artificially-induced explosive sources. He also conducts research on the spatial and temporal variation of earthquakes produced by tectonic forces and human activities such as mining and injection of fluids into deep wells.
Personal Website:
Dr. Kelly Liu
Professor in Geology & Geophysics
Sr. Research Investigator
- liukh@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-6724
- B-43 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Research Interests:
Exploration of Earth's interior using geophysical methods especially passive and active seismology. Research interests include oil and gas exploration, hazard mitigation, crustal thickness and composition, mantle velocity structure and dynamics, and crustal and mantle seismic anisotropy.
Personal Website:
Dr. Jonathan Obrist-Farner
Associate Professor in Geology and Geophysics
Research Investigator
- obristj@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-7879
- 332 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Personal Website:
Mining Engineering
Dr. Lana Alagha
Associate Professor in Mining Engineering
Research Investigator
- alaghal@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-6287
- 226 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Research Interests:
Mineral Processing, Coal Processing, Clay Minerals, Surface Science, Oil Sands Ore Processing, Nanotechnology, Polymer Science
Personal Website:
Dr. Kwame Awuah-Offei | Mining & Explosives Engineering Chair
Professor in Mining Engineering
Research Investigator
- kwamea@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-6438
- 280 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Research Interests:
Modeling and optimization of mining systems, Design and management of sustainable mining systems, Mining equipment performance evaluation, and Earthmoving equipment-formation interactions
Personal Website:
Dr. Taghi Sherizadeh
Assistant Professor in Mining Engineering
Research Investigator
- sherizadeh@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-4753
- 324 Mcnutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Specialization:
Geomechanics, computational mechanics, poromechanics, distinct element method, hybrid finite element/lattice Boltzmann analysis, micro-mechanics, computational plasticity, development of mesh generator codes, and artificial neural network applications in rock mechanics
Research Interests:
Areas of computational geomechanics, with emphasis on analytical and numerical modeling of surface and underground rock engineering projects.
Personal Website:
Explosives Engineering
Dr. Catherine Johnson
Associate Professor in Explosives Engineering
Sr. Research Investigator
- johnsonce@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-4258
- 326 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Personal Website:
Dr. Kyle Perry
Associate Professor in Explosives Engineering
Research Investigator
- kperry@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-4549
- B-55 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Personal Website:
Civil Engineering
Dr. Jenny Liu
Professor in Civil Engineering
Research Investigator
- jennyliu@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-6442
- 129 Butler Carlton Hall, 1401 North Pine Street, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Research Interests:
Liu's research focuses on understanding and application of crucial and more environmentally conscious materials and economic and effective solutions (design, construction, and preservation strategies) to transportation infrastructure needs
Personal Website:
Dr. Guney Olgun
Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering
Research Investigator
- olgun@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-4461
- 127 Butler Carlton Hall, 1401 North Pine Street, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Specialization:
Geotechnical Engineering
Research Interests:
Main Research Interests and focus areas are Energy Geotechnology and Sustainability, Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, and Disaster Resilience
Personal Website:
Dr. Xiong Zhang
Professor in Civil Engineering
Sr. Research Investigator
- zhangxi@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-6268
- 139 Butler Carlton Hall, 1401 North Pine Street, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Personal Website:
Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Dr. Phillip Mulligan
Assistant Professor in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Research Investigator
- pmulligan@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-4515
- 194J Toomey Hall, 400 West 13th Street, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Research Interests:
Explosives engineering, force protection, virtual reality, and weapon design
Personal Website:
Emeritus Faculty
Dr. J. David Rogers
Professor Emeritus and Karl F. Hasselmann Chair Emeritus in Geological Engineering
Research Investigator
- rogersda@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-6198
- B57 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Specialization:
Detection of underground voids and development of low-cost, narrow access, high precision, color imaging subsurface 3D mapping devices for inspection, discovery, and in situ underground infrastructure assessment (funding from US Army Research Laboratory and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency). Improved models to estimate the volume of vegetative material in mountainous watersheds using Geiger-mode LiDAR (funding from Project for Resilient Communities).
Personal Website:
Dr. Grzegorz Galecki
Associate Professor Emeritus in Mining Engineering
- ggalecki@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-4938
- 205 Rock Mechanics, 1006 Kingshighway Street, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Specialization:
Mineral Processing Laboratory
Research Interests:
Mineral Processing, Novel Methods of Communication, Nanomaterial Processing, Mining Processes Supported by Waterjets, Borehole Mining, Clean Coal Technology, Material processing with Waterjets, Systems Integration
Dr. Norbert Maerz
Professor Emeritus in Geological Engineering
- norbert@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-6714
- 214-A Rock Mechanics,1006 Kingshighway Street, Rolla, Missouri 65409
Specialization:
Imaging technologies for the mining, blasting, and materials handling industries, Aggregate sizing and shape measurement, Rock engineering in discontinuous rock masses, Joint characterization, Rock mass classification, Rock slope stability, Road pavement analysis, and Terrestrial LIDAR
Research Interests:
Imaging applications: granular materials and rock; Imaging applications: tunnel profilometry, rock roughness measurement; Imaging applications, material characterization, industrial inspection; Rock characterization: rock mass classification, joint mapping, block size, pre, and post-blast assessment; Data collection: efficiency, safety, minimal intrusiveness; Improving links between data collection and modeling; Large sample data collection, reduction, analysis, and presentation- digital data structures; Investigation of joint genesis; and LIDAR Applications
Personal Website:
Nuclear Engineering
Dr. Joshua Schlegel
Associate Professor
- schlegelj@mst.edu
- Phone: (573) 341-7703
- 203 Fulton Hall
Research Interests:
Two-phase flow experiments and modeling, nuclear reactor thermal hydraulics, heat transfer and fluid mechanics
Personal Website: