Interaction

Fall 2006

What's in a name?

One indication of the future direction of the School of Earth Sciences is the Petroleum Engineering Department's rebirth this year as the Department of Energy Resources Engineering. Oil recovery, fuel injection, fluid flow, geostatistics, modeling, construction and both unconventional and alternative energy sources are among the areas that faculty and graduate students are researching.

All 12 members of the faculty this year voted in favor of the change. Petroleum clearly will remain on the agenda, but the name and altered curriculum afford new opportunities. Department members will better be able to collaborate on energy conversion with the Mechanical Engineering Department, on energy management with the Department of Management Science and Engineering, and on energy and the environment with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Margot Gerritsen

According to Assistant Professor Margot Gerritsen, who works on quantifying and predicting enhanced oil recovery, "The change of name reflects an opening up of the group, the possibility of establishing more linkages.

"Our department is the most environmentally friendly in the university," she said. But the name undermined the department's eco-friendly approach, and in fact, faculty members say, was driving away students rather than attracting them. In the past decade, not one bachelor's degree had been awarded by the department.

Outgoing Chair Roland Horne told Stanford Report in the fall that he hoped the new curriculum would change that trend. Even the huge companies these days say they are in the energy business, not the oil business, Gerritsen pointed out.

In Stanford's case, the transformation is more than semantic.

"There are fascinating possibilities for clean energy today," said Gerritsen, whose PhD is in computational mathematics. "There's incredible energy and enthusiasm on the part of the faculty."