MichaelPyrcz

Michael Pyrcz smiling with arms crossed in front of large machine with pressure valve.
ProfessorB. J. Lancaster Professorship in Petroleum Engineering and George H. Fancher Centennial Teaching Fellowship in Petroleum Engineering

Research Areas
Research Interests

Integrated reservoir characterization; Unconventional resources; Petrophysics and pore-scale processes; Geologic carbon storage

About

Michael Pyrcz joined The University of Texas at Austin after 13 years in the subsurface resource industry as a subsurface modeler/geostatistician, spatial data analytics research scientist, team leader and research program manager. He teaches and leads research on multivariate, spatiotemporal modeling, data analytics, geostatistics and machine learning.

His current research focuses on improving spatial, subsurface modeling with new data science (including spatial data analytics, geostatistics and machine learning) models and workflows to improve mineral, hydrocarbon and water resource management and extraction, while minimizing and mitigating environmental impacts. He and his students work on developing subsurface data science methods that account for all engineering and geoscience information sources, spatiotemporal aspects of data, scale of the data and models and uncertainty sources, all to support optimum decision making.

Pyrcz is a champion of knowledge and collaboration, sharing all of his university educational content on YouTube, GitHub and Twitter. He 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 co-founder of daytum, an education platform and marketplace that bridges data scientists, energy industry professionals and technology.

Educational Qualifications

Ph.D., Engineering, Geostatistical Reservoir Modeling, University of Alberta, Canada
B.S., Engineering (Class Rank #1), Mining Engineering, School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, University of Alberta, Canada

Select Awards & Honors

  • International Association for Mathematical Geosciences Distinguished Lecturer (2024)
  • Gulf Coast Section Data Science and Engineering Analytics Award – Society for Petroleum Engineers (2021)
  • Associate Editor, Computers and Geosciences – International Association of Mathematical Geosciences (2017)
  • Geostatistical Congress 2016 Scientific Committee (2016)
  • International Association of Mathematical Geoscientists Council Nominee (2016)
  • A.I. Levorsen Award for Best Paper, Pacific Section – American Association Petrol Geologists (2009)
  • Outstanding Technical Editor – Society of Petroleum Engineers, Reservoir Evaluation Engineering Journal (2008)
  • Best Heavy Oil Paper, Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists – Canadian Heavy Oil Association (2004)
  • Gold Medal for B.Sc. Class Rank #1 – Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (2000)
  • Professional Engineer, Alberta, Canada

Select Publications

Google Scholar GitHub

Related News