​ANPERC associate director J. Carlos Santamarina has been representing KAUST across the world in September. On September 11, Dr. Santamarina gave a keynote lecture at the International Symposium at Georgia Institute of Technology, where he taught before coming to KAUST. The lecture, on repetitive loading, came after lectures by professors from MIT, Tongji University in Shanghai, and elsewhere. Next week Dr. Santamarina will be at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, where he will deliver the opening lecture to the International Symposium on Energy Geotechnics on Tuesday, September 25. This lecture, "Fractured Rock in Energy Geotechnics," will kick off a week of keynote addresses, technical sessions, and roundtable discussions on everything from induced seismicity to gas hydrate sediments, some of which will also be conducted by Dr. Santamarina. ANPERC will also be represented by Dr. Marco Terzariol, who will present a paper entitled "Methane Hydrate Bearing Sediments: An Analysis of Production Strategies," and PhD student Rached Rached, who will present "Hydraulic fracturing in pre-fractured media." More information about the symposium can be found here.

Both of these events are a wonderful opportunity to display the research going on at KAUST and ANPERC, and hopefully to promote KAUST to graduates and scientists eager to pursue cutting edge research in geophysics.