News
Nov. 2009
Student Chapter of Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
Heriot-Watt University, together with Edinburgh University, has recently established a student chapter of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), the world leading society for industrial mathematics.
May 2009
John Underhill - Vice President Elect of EAGE
John Underhill has been elected to the European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers (EAGE) Board in the role of Vice-President Elect for 2009-2010. He will take up the position of Vice President in 2010-2011 and be the EAGE president in 2011-2012.
EAGE is European-based organisation founded in 1951. It has the objective to promote the development and application of geosciences and related engineering subjects, to promote innovation and technical progress and to foster the communication, fellowship and cooperation between those working in, studying or otherwise being interested in these fields.
May 2009
Jointly-supervised PhD student wins award to support research
Marta Swierczek, an ECOSSE PhD student jointly supervised by John Underhill (University of Edinburgh), Helen Lever (Heriot-Watt University) and Dave Milward (BGS), has successfully won an American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Grant-In-Aid Award to support her PhD research studies. The funding will go to support her work on the effect that the Base Permian Unconformities has on fluid flow processes and Carboniferous reservoir prospectivity in the Southern North Sea. The award that she was given is entitled the Harold J. Funkhouser Memorial Award.
Feb 2009
New director for ECOSSE
Professor Dorrik Stow has now taken over as director of ECOSSE from Professor Ian Main, who will maintain his involvement with ECOSSE as deputy director.
Feb 2009
Excellent RAE results for ECOSSE
As reported in Nature, ECOSSE staff in Edinburgh were judged the top institution for the number of staff in Earth & Environmental Science who were rated world-leading or internationally excellent. 65% of the research at the Heriot-Watt University Institute for Petroleum Engineering, which forms part of ECOSSE, was classified in this category by the Engineering panel.
Feb 2009
Positive Advisory Group report on ECOSSE
The ECOSSE Advisory Group met with ECOSSE staff and students in January 2009, viewing many research posters and seeing several presentations. Their annual report on the progress and status of ECOSSE was very positive in many areas of ECOSSE activity.
Sep 2008
New Head of Institute for the Institute of Petoleum Engineering, Heriot-Watt University
Professor Simon Stewart will be joining IPE on 1st January 2009 as the new Head of Institute, and will be involved with ECOSSE.
Simon graduated in Geology from Dundee in 1989 and got his PhD in Structural Geology in 1992 from Imperial College. He worked for 8 years with Amerada before joining BP in 2000. He has worked for BP in Baku as Senior Geophysicist and most recently as New Well Delivery Team Leader. He has experience in 4D seismic, geomechanics, well planning and exploration. He has published over 40 papers on a range of geoscientific issues - from impact craters to nuclear waste disposal; He is an Honorary Professor at Durham University. He is a native of Dundee and is married with one small child and a second on the way. Amongst his pastimes is mountaineering.
ECOSSE forges ahead
On its third birthday ECOSSE has been able to report significant successes in its annual report to the Scottish Funding Council.
Total income this year, from joint projects with partners in ECOSSE or the parent Edinburgh Regional partnership in Engineering and Mathematics and awards to new staff, was £5,758,741. Cumulative research income from ECOSSE is now £9.7M over three years, compared to a total initial SFC investment of £1.8M, a gearing of over five to one so far, with two years still to run on the initiative.
Twelve new PhD students jointly supervised by two or more of the collaborating
institutions started in 2007/8. ECOSSE’s graduate School now totals 21 PhD students. This is the single largest area of joint research activity at present. The portfolio is broad and covers a variety of funding sources and collaborations, all in collaboration between Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt, SUERC and the BGS.
Aug 2008
New Professor appointed to ECOSSE
Prof. Dorrick Stow, currently of the University of Southampton, will take up the ECOSSE Chair on 1st October 2008, at Heriot-Watt University. His is the final and most senior of 8 new staff appointments enabled by ECOSSE. Dorrick's main research area is in deep sea sedimentary processes, their interactions with deep ocean environments and currents, and past environmental change.