Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
Dr Jimmy Li works at the intersection of geophysics, petrophysics and geomechanics, applied to petroleum, unconventional gas and geoenergy storage.
Before academia, he spent a decade with Halliburton (Sperry Drilling) in measurement- and logging-while-drilling and directional drilling, delivering geosteering and formation evaluation for Shell, ConocoPhillips, CNOOC and PetroChina across onshore and offshore fields.
His PhD at Curtin University (2021) developed the first theory to probe rock wettability with elastic wave propagation, published in Geophysical Research Letters, Geophysics and JASA.
At UQ since 2021, he has run laboratory programs in rock mechanics, petrophysics and formation evaluation, with industry-funded research for Origin Energy, ACARP, QPME, Lihir Gold and others. He established the Quality Management System for the University's rock mechanics testing laboratory and mechanical testing laboratory, which held NATA accreditation for rock mechanics measurement from 2022. Current work spans coal and sandstone geomechanics, fluid invasion and retention in unconventional reservoirs, CO₂ and hydrogen storage, and machine learning for subsurface characterisation.
He welcomes enquiries about industry-funded research and contract laboratory testing.
Dr Mojtaba Rajabi has over 15 years of extensive experience in crustal stress analysis, geomechanics, geomechanical-numerical modelling, hydrogeology and petrophysics. He graduated with a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of Adelaide in 2017. Dr Rajabi has worked on the geomechanical analyses of >30 sedimentary basins from across the world including Australia, New Zealand, Middle East, Mozambique, Iceland and Western Mediterranean. Since 2012, Dr Rajabi has worked on the Australian and World Stress Map projects, and currently is the Deputy-Head of the World Stress Map project. Dr Rajabi has received over 15 prestigious awards and prizes for his research including the ARC-DECRA Award, the Australian SEG Early Achievement Award, EAGE Louis Cagniard Award, EGU TS Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award, the Royal Society of South Australia's H.G. Andrewartha Medal, and the International Lithosphere Program’s Flinn-Hart Award.
