​Tadeusz (Tad) W. Patzek is a Professor of Earth Science and Engineering and Director of the Ali I. Al-Naimi Petroleum Engineering Center at KAUST, Saudi Arabia.  Until December 2014, he was the Lois K. and Richard D. Folger Leadership Professor and Chairman of the Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin.  He also held the Cockrell Regents Chair #11. Between 1990 and 2008, he was a Professor of Geoengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining Berkeley, he was a researcher at Shell Development. Most recently, he has been named the winner of the Desiderius Erasmus Award 2020 for Lifetime Contribution. The Award was presented to Prof. Patzek by the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) for his outstanding and lasting achievements in the field of resource exploration and development.

Patzek's research involves mathematical and numerical modeling of earth systems with emphasis on subsurface fluid flow. He is working on the thermodynamics and ecology of human survival and energy supply for humanity. He is also working on unconventional natural gas and oil resources. Patzek is a coauthor of over 200 papers and reports, and one book, and is writing five other books.  Patzek's publications can be found at: http://bit.ly/1W7NpGt. In 2014, his work on scaling gas production from shales received the Cozzarelli Prize from the National Academy of Sciences for the best paper in engineering published in 2013.