Geoscience, engineering students advance to awards finals

April 7, 2016

Photo courtesy of Cathy Hanks. This team of geosciences and engineering graduate students took first place in the regional Imperial Barrel Awards competition. From left are Associate Professor Cathy Hanks, who is the team's faculty adviser, and graduate students Mitali Chandnani, Bakul Mathur, Alby Harris, John Barefoot and Emily Pendergrass.

A team of five University of Alaska Fairbanks geoscience and engineering graduate students won first place and $1,000 at a regional 2016 Imperial Barrel Awards competition. They will advance to the international IBA competition in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in June.

Four graduate students —John Barefoot, Mitali Chandnani, Alby Harris, and Emily Pendergrass — are from the Department of Geosciences in the College of Natural Science and Mathematics. Bakul Mathur is a petroleum graduate student from the College of Engineering and Mines. Catherine Hanks, a UAF professor of geology, is their adviser.

The team competed against seven other universities from California and Oregon in IBA’s Pacific Section. Every year, about 160 schools compete in 12 regional IBA competitions across the world. The first-place winners of each competition advance to the international IBA competition.

The American Association of Petroleum Geologists sponsors the competition, which draws geoscience students from universities around the world. Teams can have as many as five students, a faculty adviser and two industry professionals. Ben Siks from BP and Tom Homza from Shell acted as mentors for the team.

AAPG gives the teams a data set about a real place, including information on its geology and geophysics. Students have eight weeks to analyze the data and determine the gas and oil potential of the area before presenting their findings to a panel of industry judges at the regional competition.

The Geosciences Department has been competing in the IBA regional competition for five years and has placed in the top three each time.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Associate Professor Catherine Hanks, 907-474-5562, clhanks@alaska.edu