Educational Qualifications:

B.S., Social Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 1960

B.A., Mathematics, The University of Texas at Austin, 1960

M.A., Mathematics, The University of Texas at Austin, 1963

Ph.D., Mathematics, Rice University, 1971

PGE Courses:

PGE 383 - Finite Element Methods

PGE 397 - Graduate Research Internship

PGE 699W - Dissertation        

PGE 999W - Dissertation     

PGE W399W - Dissertation

Research:

Dr. Mary F. Wheeler continues to formulate and analyze new scalable, parallel, multiscale, multiphysics algorithms for treating multiple time and spatial scales that arise in complex subsurface phenomena. She and her research team have enhanced the flow simulator, one of the few existing parallel equation-of-state compositional simulators, to include the following capabilities: hysteresis, interfacial tension, coupling of compositional flow with geomechanics, and parallel history matching and optimization. Dr. Wheeler’s research is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy (DOE), Aramco, BP, Chevron/Texaco, Conoco/Phillips, and IBM. Dr. Wheeler’s research impacts energy production through enhanced oil and gas extraction, air quality with carbon sequestration in saline aquifers, and water quality with environmental remediation in groundwater. Dr. Wheeler also serves as associate director of the Department of Energy Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security.

Awards & Honors:

SPE Honorary Member, 2014.

John von Neumann Medal Award, USACM, May 2013.

Lifetime Achievement Award, International Society for Porous Media, InterPore, February 2013.

American Academy of Arts and Sciences Member, 2010.

Theodore von Kármán Prize, 2009.

Honorary doctorate from the Colorado School of Mines, 2008.

Honorary doctorate from Technische Universiteit Eindhoven in the Netherlands, 2006.

National Academy of Engineering Member, 1998.

Highlighted Publications and Google Scholar Profile:

Phillips, P. J., and Wheeler, M. F., “A Coupling of Mixed and Continuous Galerkin Finite Element Methods for Poroelasticity I: the Continuous in Time Case,” Computational Geosciences, vol. 11 (June, 2007), no. 2, pp. 131-144.

Phillips, P. J., and Wheeler, M. F., “A Coupling of Mixed and Continuous Galerkin Finite Element Methods for Poroelasticity II: the Discrete in Time Case,” Computational Geosciences, vol. 11 (June, 2007), no. 2, pp. 145-158.

Balhoff, M., Thomas, S., Wheeler, M. F., “Mortar coupling and upscaling of pore-scale models,” Computational Geosciences, vol. 12 (September, 2007), no. 1, pp. 15-27.

Girault, V., Sun, S., Wheeler, M. F. and Yotov, I., “Coupling discontinuous Galerkin and mixed finite element discretizations using mortar finite elements,” SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 949-979, March 2008.

Girault, V., Rivière, B., and Wheeler, M. F., “A discontinuous Galerkin method with non-overlapping domain decomposition for the Stokes and Navier-Stokes problems,” Mathematics of Computation, vol. 74, no. 249 (2005), pp. 53-84.

Wheeler, M.F., Xue, G., and Yotov, I., “Accurate cell-centered discretizations for modeling multiphase flow in porous media on general hexahedral and simplicial grids,” SPE Journal, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 779-793, September 2012, SPE-141534-PA. Presented at SPE Reservoir Simulation Symposium, Woodlands, Texas, February 2011.

Wheeler, M.F.; Mikelic, A., “On the interface law between a deformable porous medium containing a viscous fluid and an elastic body,” Mathematical Models and Methods in Applied Sciences, Vol. 22, No. 11, June 2012, DOI: 10.1142/S0218202512500315.

Mikelić, A., and Wheeler, M. F., “Convergence of iterative coupling for coupled flow and geomechanics,” Computational Geosciences, /Vol. 17, Issue 3, pp. 455-461, June 2013.

Mikelić, A., Wheeler, M. F., and Wick, T., “Phase field approach to the fluid-filled fracture surrounded by a poroelastic medium,” Submitted to Mathematical Models and Methods in Applied Sciences, 2013.

Mikelić, A., Wheeler, M.F., and Wick, T., “A quasistatic phase field approach for fluid filled fractures,” Submitted to Nonlinearity, August 2013.