Tariq Alkhalifah

Principal Investigators

Professor of Geophysics (KAUST)

Current

Social Profile:

Biography

Tariq Alkhalifah is a Professor of Geophysics at KAUST in the School of Earth Science and Engineering. He joined KAUST in June 2009. Before joining KAUST, Alkhalifah was research professor and director of the Oil and Gas Research Institute at King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST). Previously, he held the positions of associate research professor, assistant research professor, and research assistant at KACST. From 1996 to 1998, Alkhalifah served as a postdoctoral researcher for the Stanford Exploration Project at Stanford University, United States. He received the J. Clarence Karcher Award from the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) in 1998 and the Conrad Schlumberger Award from the European Association for Geoscientists & Engineers (EAGE) in 2003, and honorary lecturer for the SEG in 2011. Alkhalifah is a member of SEG and of EAGE. Alkhalifah received his doctoral degree in geophysics and his master’s degree in geophysical engineering, both from the Colorado School of Mines, United States. He holds a bachelor’s degree in geophysics from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia.

Tariq’s areas of expertise are in waveform imaging and inversion, including those waveforms collected from anisotropic media, and using numerical tools like machine learning to do so.

Research Interests

Dr. Alkhalifah's research interests are in seismic modeling, imaging and inversion. In particular, he looks at developing new partial differential equations to simplify modeling, imaging and possibly inversion, with a special focus on anisotropic media. This includes parameter estimation in anisotropic complex media.

His future research objectives include developing his methods for waveform inversion and imaging utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence,  enhancing applications related to environmental hazards of the near surface, pipeline leakage and ground failure (sink holes) and focusing on computational efficiency to accurately locate new hydrocarbon reserves and assess the production value of existing ones based on his seismic exploration method.  Much of this research will be driven by the development of his startup Omega One Seismics.

Selected Publications

Education

  • Ph.D. Geophysics, Colorado School of Mines, 1997
  • M.S. Geophysical Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, 1993
  • B.S. Geophysics, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, 1988

Professional Profile

  • 2009- present, Professor of Geophysics, KAUST, Saudi Arabia.
  • 2006–2009, Research Professor, Director of the Oil and Gas Research Institute, King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
  • 2002–2006, Associate Research Professor, Director of the Astronomy and Geophysics Research Institute, KACST, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
  • 1998–2002, Assistant Research Professor, KACST, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
  • 1997-1998, Post Doc, Stanford University, CA, USA
  • 1988–1991, Research Assistant, KACST, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Awards

  • Honorable mention for the best paper in the Geophysics journal: "Full model wavenumber inversion", 2016
  • EET10 course tour, EAGE 2014-2015
  • Honorary lecturer for Middle East and Africa, SEG 2011
  • Best Geophysics Paper, presented at GEO2006 Bahrain, 2006
  • Conrad Schlumberger Award, European Association for Geoscientists and Engineers, 2003
  • Clarence J. Karcher Award, The Society of Exploration Geophysicists, 1998
  • Honorable mention for the best paper in the Geophysics journal: "Velocity analysis using nonhyperbolic moveout in transversely isotropic media",1997
  • Honorable mention for best student paper presented at the 62nd SEG annual meeting: "Integral DMO in anisotropic media," 1996
  • Honorable mention for the best paper in the Geophysics journal: "Velocity analysis for transversely isotropic media", 1995