JohnFoster

About

John Foster holds the George H. Fancher Fellowship in Petroleum Engineering. He received his B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from Texas Tech University and Ph.D. from Purdue University.

Before joining UT as a professor, he gained experience in both the industry and higher education, working as a senior member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories seven years and as a faculty member at UTSA.

Foster’s research interests are in experimental and computational mechanics and multi-scale modeling with applications to geomechanics, impact mechanics, fracture mechanics and anomalous transport processes. His research has spanned full-scale projectile penetration field tests, laboratory experiments using Kolsky bars and simulation efforts using some of the world’s largest computers.

His passion for data goes beyond the classroom. Foster co-hosts the annual Energy AI Hackathon, a weekend-long event in which students from across the university work together in teams to solve a real-world energy challenge using machine learning in Python. Additionally, he is a researcher for the DIRECT Industrial Affiliate Program focused on subsurface data analytics and machine learning as well as a co-founder of daytum, an education platform and marketplace that bridges data scientists, energy industry professionals and technology.

Educational Qualifications

Ph.D., Purdue University, 2009
M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Texas Tech University, 2004
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Texas Tech University, 2002

Select Awards & Honors

• Data Science and Engineering Analytics Award – Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Southwestern North America Region (2023)
• Young Investigator Award – AFOSR (2013)
• 40 under 40 – San Antonio Business Journal

Related Websites

• Foster Online Portfolio
• Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences
• Digital Reservoir Characterization Technology (DIRECT)
• daytum

Select Publications