Ohio State has many faculty members who either work directly with shale as it relates to hydrocarbons or have expertise in areas of importance to shale gas exploration, evaluation and production. Their efforts will contribute substantially to the future of projects in Ohio and across the country.
Aravind Asthagiri, associate professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering, is engaged in the modeling and simulation of catalysts for sustainable energy generation and conversion. Contact: asthagiri.1@osu.edu
Loren Babcock, professor in the School of Earth Sciences, has a long history of work in black shale units, including gas shales, in the Appalachian Basin and elsewhere. Babcock’s expertise in the lower-middle Paleozoic rocks of Ohio and adjacent areas encompass: stratigraphic relationships, facies relationships, chronostratigraphy (incorporating biostratigraphy, sequence stratigraphy, isotope stratigraphy, etc.), tectonic patterns and basin history. Contact: babcock.5@osu.edu
Bhavik Bakshi, professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering and co-Director of the Center for Resilience, has various ongoing environmental engineering research efforts including those related to carbon cycle analysis. Contact: bakshi.2@osu.edu
Nick Basta, professor of Soil and Environmental Chemistry in the School of Environment and Natural Resources, focuses on soil quality, soil remediation, and toxic organic and inorganic pollutants in contaminated soils and water with emphasis on human (e.g., public health), agronomic (e.g., crop, animal) and ecosystem health. Contact: basta.4@osu.edu
Michael Bevis leads the Geodesy and Geodynamics (G2) group in the Division of Geodetic Science. His research uses GPS geodesy to investigate aspects of earth system dynamics, including plate tectonics, earthquake deformation cycle, mountain building, postglacial rebound, elastic loading phenomena, sea level change, water vapor dynamics and climate change. Contact: bevis.6@osu.edu
Tarunjit Butalia, associate professor in civil, environmental and geodetic engineering, focuses on characterization of natural and synthetic materials and their use in technically sound, environmentally benign and commercially competitive applications. Contact: butalia.1@osu.edu
David Cole, professor in the School of Earth Science, is an Ohio Scholar who specializes in the geochemistry of earth materials. Cole’s laboratory-based research focuses on changes in rock mineralogy and structure (porosity and permeability) brought about by the injection and extraction of fluids into the subsurface. Cole is the Interim Director of CERTAIN. Contact: cole.618@osu.edu
Ann Cook, associate professor in the School of Earth Sciences, focuses on understanding the dimensions, features, and overall resource potential of the gas hydrate reservoir. Using borehole logs and images to study gas hydrates, Cook integrates logging data with seismic surveys and core data and uses different types of mathematical models to gain insight into the gas hydrate reservoir. Other interests include geologic CO2 sequestration, shale gas, and the petroleum industry. Contact: cook.1129@osu.edu
Tom Darrah, associate professor in the School of Earth Science, specializes in the geochemistry of earth fluids and materials. Darrah’s field- and laboratory-based research program focuses on developing and deploying molecular and isotope geochemistry to improve the efficiency of obtaining energy and other critical resources (e.g., oil, natural gas, geothermal, nuclear, carbon dioxide, helium, rare earth elements) and evaluating their potential associated environmental and human health impact(s). Darrah serves as the Associate Director of CERTAIN and Director of the OSU WHEEL and Noble Gas Laboratories. Contact: darrah.24@osu.edu
Neil Drobny is program director for Environment, Economy, Development & Sustainability (EEDS), a multidisciplinary degree program. His research interests relate to the business case for sustainability and the associated business strategies, practices and tools that have been adopted and that are evolving to enable the execution of sustainable business agendas. Contact: drobny.3@osu.edu
Jim Durand, research specialist at CAR, with expertise in design, modeling and optimization of energy systems with a focus on alternative energy and automotive systems. Contact: durand.14@osu.edu
L.-S. Fan, Distinguished University Professor and C. John Easton Professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering, researches carbonaceous fuels, such as coal, shale gas, and biomass, for gasification, reforming, and chemical syntheses to produce electricity, syngas, hydrogen, liquid fuels and chemicals, and their redox mechanisms in chemical looping systems. Contact: fan.1@osu.edu
Ashley Griffith, associate professor in the School of Earth Sciences, leads the Structural Geology and Geomechanics group at Ohio State. His expertise is in rock and fracture mechanics, and he and his students investigate the process of brittle fracture as it applies to earthquake physics, brittle deformation in reservoir rocks, and active crustal deformation through combined field, experimental, and theoretical approaches. His lab is designed to study dynamic fracture mechanics and material behavior and is equipped with several tools to test and monitor high strain rate deformation. Contact: griffith.233@osu.edu
Dennis Hall is Director of Ohio Bioproducts Innovation Center (OBIC), including the OBIC Bioproduct Network, as well as primary investigator to several bioproduct and bioenergy education projects to help prepare the talent needed in the emerging bioeconomy. Contact: hall.16@osu.edu
Jennie Harkness, post-doctoral researcher in the School of Earth Science, specializes in the geochemistry of subsurface fluids, and energy-related wastewater. Dr. Harkness’ laboratory and field-based research uses a suite of geochemical and isotopic tracers to investigate water-rock interactions during energy extraction, identify migrated natural and anthropogenic fluids in drinking water sources, and understand potential environmental and human health impacts. Contact: harkness.42@osu.edu
Winston Ho, Distinguished Professor of Engineering in chemical and biomolecular engineering, focuses on membrane separations and gas separations relevant to energy production. Contact: ho.192@osu.edu
Roman Lanno, associate professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, specializes environmental toxicology and risk assessment. The primary focus of his research group lies in applied and theoretical aspects of chemical exposure assessment and ecological effects assessment in various environmental media. Specifically, research examines relationships between chemical and biological measures of bioavailability and toxicity endpoints such as lethality, growth, reproduction, or biomarkers, in both aquatic and terrestrial systems. His research group has developed and applied solvent and solid-phase extraction techniques as biomimetic or biological surrogates for estimating the bioavailability of organic chemicals and metals. More recent areas of interest include the environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing and applications of eDNA in ecotoxicology. Lanno is Associate Director of CERTAIN. Contact: lanno.1@osu.edu.
John Lenhart, associate professor in civil, environmental and geodetic engineering, conducts research identifying and characterizing chemical reactions and physical processes that control the migration of chemical species in the environment. Lenhart’s research as it applies to sustainable energy development will focus on the elucidation of geochemical reactions of importance in the near-subsurface (soil and groundwater) necessary to understand potential environmental impacts of energy recovery as well as to ensure energy production wastes are properly managed. His work couples wet chemical experimentation, with advanced spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. Contact: lenhart.49@osu.edu
Linda Lobao, professor of rural sociology, in the School of Environment and Natural Resources, studies the impact of economic and governmental changes on the well-being of regions, communities, and families. Her past research projects have focused on socioeconomic conditions in the Ohio River Valley, Appalachia, and the U.S. as a whole—and the determinants of these conditions. Contact: lobao.1@osu.edu
Berry Lyons, College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor, is a low-temperature geochemist interested in water resource issues. He works on the sources, transport, and fate of inorganic constituents in natural waters, and uses isotopic measurements to investigate various hydrologic and geochemical processes. Contact: lyons.142@osu.edu
Paula Mouser, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and geodetic science, investigates how the ecology and metabolic condition of microorganisms influences biophysiochemical processes in subsurface environments. Her focus, as it applies to sustainable resource development, will be to better characterize the physiology of indigenous microbial communities and their role in enhancing or reducing energy productivity in the subsurface. She also researches how energy development influences the structure of microbial communities, and their impact on the fate and transport of harmful chemical species in the environment. Contact: mouser.19@osu.edu
Umit Ozkan, engineering distinguished professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering, researches catalytic and electrocatalytic conversions of alkanes to value-added chemicals. Specifically, she if focused on catalysts and its application in energy- and environment-related areas. Contact: ozkan.1@osu.edu
Shaurya Prakash is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He directs the Microsystems and Nanosystems Laboratory with the focus on using new scientific discoveries in transport phenomena for technology development in both renewable and non-renewable energy sources and water purification and treatment. Contact: prakash.31@osu.edu
Giorgio Rizzoni, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and adjunct professor of industrial design. Contact: rizzoni.1@osu.edu
Matthew Saltzman, professor and director of the School of Earth Sciences, has worked on stable and radiogenic isotope stratigraphy of marine carbonates in the Appalachian Basin and has extensive experience in the units directly underlying the Utica Shale. Saltzman’s work focuses on correlating strata and the development of a sequence-stratigraphic framework, and identifying geologic time intervals during which organic carbon burial rates were high. Contact: saltzman.11@osu.edu
Franklin Schwartz, professor in earth sciences, is an Ohio Eminent Scholar specializing in hydrology with a primary interest in contaminant hydrogeology and ground water protection. In addition to his work on near-surface contaminant issues, Schwartz has extensive experience in deep environments related to oil exploration and development, and has a keen interest in helping to develop methods that ensure the protection of ground water from deep subsurface development of gas resources and carbon sequestration. Contact: schwartz.11@osu.edu
Julie Sheets, senior lecturer in the School of Earth Sciences, researches microanalytical techniques applied to mineral microtextures in order to interpret their formation histories. Contact: sheets.2@osu.edu
Brian Slater is an associate professor in the School of Environment and Natural Resources, specializing in soil sciences. Contact: slater.39@osu.edu
Brent Sohngen is a professor of environmental economics in the Departmentof Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics. He conducts research on land use and climate change, carbon trading, and water quality trading. He co-authored sections of the 2001 and 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports on the impacts of climate change on forests and agriculture and on the potential for carbon sequestration in forests. Contact: sohngen.1@osu.edu
Linda Weavers, professor in civil and environmental engineering and geodetic science, is co-director of the National Institute of Water Resources Center for Ohio. Weavers’ research explores advanced oxidation processes (including ultrasound, ozonation, and photochemistry), sediment remediation, contaminants contained on fly ash and flue gas desulfurization by-product (FGD), and defouling of membranes for water treatment. Contact: weavers.1@osu.edu
Sue Welch is a senior research associate in the School of Earth Sciences, with interests in the field of Low Temperature Geochemistry and Biogeochemistry. Current work focuses on CO2 sequestration, and the reactivity of trace mineral phases on the geochemistry of natural waters. Contact: welch.318@osu.edu