MatthewBalhoff

UT PGE Department Chair and Professor Matthew Balhoff
Department Chair & ProfessorLois and Richard Folger Leadership Chair and Bank of America Centennial Professorship in Petroleum Engineering

Research Areas
Research Interests

Pore scale and multiscale modeling; Flow and transport in porous media; Reservoir engineering

About

Matthew Balhoff joined the Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering as an assistant professor in 2007.

Over his tenure, he has taught a variety of courses on fluids, simulation and reservoir engineering. He quickly became known for his thoughtful teaching methods, earning the UT PGE Departmental Teaching Award in 2009 and the ASEE Gulf Coast Southwest Outstanding Young Faculty Award in 2011, only a few years after joining the faculty. He’s been acknowledged for his continued effort, receiving additional honors over the years, including the CSE Lockheed Martin Award for Excellence in Engineering Teaching in 2022.

His dedication to his students matches his commitment to energy innovation. The overall goal of Balhoff’s research has been to model, understand and validate fundamental flow and transport behavior of subsurface fluids with applications to hydrocarbon recovery, carbon sequestration, groundwater remediation and nuclear waste storage. In 2020, he established the Center for Subsurface Energy and the Environment (CSEE), an organized research unit at UT dedicated to developing interdisciplinary programs in subsurface energy.

Balhoff has served as the chair of the PGE Department since 2023. In this leadership role, his goal is to recruit, retain and inspire an interdisciplinary and collaborative faculty that performs groundbreaking research and educates the next generation of engineers and scientists, providing sustainable, affordable and essential hydrocarbons to the planet while contributing to a smooth energy transition.

Educational Qualifications

B.S., Chemical Engineering, Louisiana State University, 2000
Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, Louisiana State University, 2005

Select Awards & Honors

  • Lockheed Martin Award for Excellence in Engineering Teaching – Cockrell School of Engineering (2022)
  • Lester C. Uren Award – Society of Petroleum Engineers (2022)
  • Distinguished Member Award – Society of Petroleum Engineers (2017)
  • Regional Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award (Southwestern North America) – Society of Petroleum Engineers (2017)
  • Young Member Outstanding Service Award – Society of Petroleum Engineers (2014)
  • Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award for Assistant Professor – The University of Texas at Austin (2013)
  • International Teaching Fellow Award – Society of Petroleum Engineers (2012)
  • Gulf Coast Southwest Outstanding Young Faculty Award – ASEE (2011)
  • Departmental Teaching Award – Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering (2009)

Select Publications

Google scholar

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