Presentations

Justin Birdwell is a research engineer and geochemist with the U.S. Geological Survey Central Energy Resources Science Center in Denver, Colorado. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, earning B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering in 2002 and 2007. His research focuses on assessment of oil & gas resources, source rock geochemistry, geothermal resources in sedimentary basins, and environmental impacts of energy development. Justin is the president of the AAPG Energy Minerals Division (2021-2022), a co-chair of the EMD Tight Oil & Gas Committee, a member of the AAPG House of Delegates representing the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, and an Associate Editor for AAPG Bulletin.

Tim Collett has been a research geologist in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) since 1983. Tim is the project chief of the Energy Resources Program funded gas hydrate research efforts in the USGS. He has been the chief and co-chief scientists of numerous international gas hydrate scientific and industrial drilling expeditions and programs. Collett has published more than 250 research papers along with 10 books and treatises on gas hydrates and other unconventional energy resources. Collett is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Geophysics at the Colorado School of Mines. Tim is currently the Chair of the AAPG Energy Minerals Division Gas Hydrate Committee.

Mike is a graduate of the University of North Dakota in geology, earning both a bachelors and master’s degrees in geology in 2006. His work focuses on Kirkwood interests in oil and gas holdings, gold and bitcoin mines, helium, critical minerals, and other projects throughout the Rockies. Mike is currently vice president of the AAPG Energy Minerals Division, chair of the EMD Communications Committee, and a member of the AAPG EMD geothermal committee. He previously served in nearly seven years on the board of the Wyoming Geological Association and three years on the board of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. In addition to AAPG, Mike is also an active member of the Geological Society of America, Society of Petroleum Engineers, Society of Economic Geology, and many local Casper volunteer activities. His goals include increasing the connectivity between societies, individuals, and technological empowerment.

Jeffrey Aldrich is a Senior Geoscientist with Sproule Inc., a Calgary-based petroleum consulting firm but is located in the Denver, CO office. He has over 35 years of global oil and gas experience working from frontier exploration through appraisal and large development projects. His expertise is in unconventional reservoirs, prospect evaluation, reserve determinations and helium resources. Prior to joining Sproule, he held various management and technical positions with Dart Energy, an Australian global unconventional gas company, Greenpark Energy, a UK CBM company, PetroSA, the South African national oil company, Forest Oil, Maxus Energy and Pennzoil Oil and Gas Company. He has a BS in Geology from Vanderbilt University and an MS in Geology from Texas A&M University. He is an active member in the AAPG, SPE, RMAG, DWLS, DIPS and is co-chairman of the AAPG Committee of Resource Evaluation and the EMD Helium Subcommittee. He is both a Certified Petroleum Geologist and a Licensed Geoscientist in Texas and Louisiana. Jeff is author or co-author of over 35 papers and/or technical presentations and is currently the Chairman of the Board of Datapages, Inc.

Ian is a senior geologist in the Reservoir Services group at Sproule where his primary role is providing geological evaluations for oil and gas reserves and resource assessments, carbon management, and gas storage projects, mainly in Western Canada and the USA. He has over 32 years of diverse industry experience in exploration, development, operations, gas storage, reservoir studies, reserves and resources, and litigation support in roles at producers, service and consulting companies, and as an independent consultant. Ian earned academic degrees from Brock University and the University of Calgary.

Dr. Lucy Tingwei Ko serves as a chair of the Tight Oil and Gas Committee (TOG committee) under AAPG EMD. She is currently a Research Associate at the Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas at Austin. She works both in the Mudrock System Research Laboratory (MSRL) group and STARR group at the Bureau. She is an integrated geologist, geochemist, and petroleum system analyzer. She started her career as an organic geochemist, using biomarker to understand the effect of clay minerals on migration fractionation. She then did her MS at Colorado School of Mines, where she used gas isotope, gas composition, and biomarkers to unravel the possible migration and filling of the gases in the Rocky Mountain tight gas basins. After moving to Texas, she decided to switch her career focus to mudrock sedimentology and stratigraphy, linking fundamental process-driven mechanisms to predict reservoir quality and properties in the unconventional systems.

Consultant: energy research management and analysis, Palo Alto CA

Retired: Electric Power Research Institute (Manager, Power and Fuel Markets)

Educational background in geology (MS) and economics. 38-year career managing research on fuel supply, power markets and generation planning for the Electric Power Research Institute – thus, perspective of very large energy consumers. Topics included uranium availability, coal supply, rail, SO2 compliance (incl. the new “allowance” market), the shale phenomenon, planning under uncertainty, and power market simulation including impacts of renewables. Organized EPRI’s annual industry seminar on fuel & power issues for 31 years.

For AAPG/EMD: Chaired Nuclear Committee in 1980s; president of EMD 1988-89; organized symposium “Gas in the New Electric Market”, 1999; founded Committee on Energy Economics and Technology (now co-chair) in 1998. In Search and Discovery: “Hitting the Jackpot During Oil-Gas Price Collapse: The Consumer” and “Aliso Canyon Gas Storage Leak Disaster and Response”, Pacific Section/Rocky Mtn Section Mtg, 2016.

Served as observer on Potential Gas Committee since mid-1980s. Provided webinar for prior employer: “Nat Gas: Fraught with Opportunity”, 2016.

Ashley Douds is currently Principal Geologist at Core2Core Geologic Consulting, located in Dripping Springs, TX. She is also co-owner of Wildlands Research that analyzes and evaluates the stratigraphic and geographic distribution of critical minerals in shales.

Ashley graduated from West Virginia University with both a Bachelors and Masters in Geology.

Her experience as a Petroleum Geologist spans over 20 years and includes US shale, and numerous conventional and unconventional plays (in the Appalachian, Permian, and Rocky Mountain Basins, South Texas, and GOM), as well as international offshore plays (Brazil and Nigeria).

During Ashley's career, she's worked for super majors (ExxonMobil), at utilities (Equitable), small independents (EQT and Parsley Energy) and as a government contractor (URS/SAIC/EG&G at DOE’s NETL).

Ashley's most recent assignment was Geologic Advisor – Exploration for Parsley Energy where she worked both the Midland and Delaware Basins preparing in-place maps from petrophysical analysis, evaluating exploration targets, generating geomechanical facies from core data, and evaluating geochemical data including the origin of non-hydrocarbon gases.

At EQT, Ashley was Director of the Reservoir Technology group where her focus was on exploration, near field wildcat, and development projects that integrate concepts of geology with geochemistry, sequence stratigraphy, and petrophysics for conventional and unconventional projects. She also spent several years evaluating and assessing new technologies and their usefulness in understanding the subsurface both before and after completion operations.

Ashley is a member of the Potential Gas Committee (PGC) contributing to the Mid-Continent Region and previously contributed to the North Atlantic Region. She is a member of AAPG-EMD and DPA, Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) and Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists (SIPES). She also volunteers as an Assistant Grant Writer for The Honor Yoga Foundation. In July, Ashley was named the Chair of the Critical Minerals Committee within AAPG/EMD.