Chi is the recipient of 2018 J. Michael Young Academic Advisor Award, which recognizes an outstanding faculty or academic staff member in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences for exemplary advising of undergraduate students. 

Chi was invited to give a talk at CPS/SEG 2018 conference in Beijing, China. Chi also took the opportunity to visit PetroChina research institute in Hangzhou, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Institute of geology and geophysics, Chinese Academy of SciencesChina, and School of Earth and Space Sciences at University of Science and Technology of China. It was a great and productive trip.

We revisited Konza Prairie during the past weekend to take borehole NMR measurements in wells along our ERT and surface NMR profiles from September last year. The weather was really harsh but the crew did a fantastic job!  

During Spring break, Chi did a field test in Santa Rosa using cross borehole ERT to characterize the in situ enhancement of biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in soil and groundwater using BECS system. ​

We hosted Dr. Norbert Klitzsch from RWTH-Aachen at KU on April 4th and 5th. Dr. Klitzsch gave the departmental colloquium talk on small scale ERT measurements as well as NMR measurements in the vadose zone. 

​Norbert’s research interests are the physical properties of porous media. Since his doctoral dissertation (PhD thesis) he has been studying electromagnetic rock properties, in particular the NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) and SIP (spectral induced polarization) properties of rocks. Besides the physics of these methods he is mainly interested in the application of (not only) these geophysical methods for deducing rock properties.

Chi, Fan, James, and Qifei all presented at 2018 annual Kansas Interdisciplinary Carbonates Consortium meeting on March 12th and 13th, 2018.
1. Characterization of pore structure in carbonate rocks using geophysical tools - a multi-scale integrated approach.
2. Numerical simulation of electrical properties of carbonate reservoir rocks using micro-CT images
3. Resistivity and permeability of carbonate rocks: influence of mineral precipitation and dissolution
4. Joint inversion of NMR and complex conductivity data on estimating pore size distribution in carbonate

We also gave the conference attendees a tour of our lab. 

Chi gave a talk, 'Using geophysical tools to characterize pore structure and flow properties in subsurface', in the Dept. of Geology at Kansas State University on International Women's Day. Chi dedicated one slide in her presentation to celebrate women's day. The discussion with faculty and students on carbonate diagenesis was very interesting.  

Our visiting student Ling Peng, a 2nd year PhD student from China University of Geosciences, has been selected as a grant recipient for the 2018 AAPG Grants-in-Aid Program. This year the Foundation received more than 340 applications from across the world. The AAPG Foundation’s Grants-in-Aid program selected 124 grant applicants to receive a total of $285,000 in geoscience grant funds. Ling applied for this scholarship with KU's endorsement. Congratulations, Ling!

Hello from the Red Sea! Dr. Chi Zhang and her PhD student Fan Zhang were invited to visit King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia to attend a conference on 'Recovery of Difficult Hydrocarbons'.  Dr. Zhang gave a talk on petrophysical relationships in carbonate among other ~40 talks given by renowned experts in multi-scale imaging, reservoir modeling, surface chemistry, and many more fields. Fan also presented in the poster session. The conference has a good mix of academia institutions as well as industry participants. We really enjoy the conference and it was a good opportunity to reach out to other fields. 

Invited by Center for Research in Energy and Environment of Missouri S&T, Dr. Zhang gave a seminar in the Civil Engineering Hall on Wednesday, Jan. 24. Dr. Zhang also got the chance to meet with faculty and students from both Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering and Geological Sciences & Engineering departments.