Lorena Moscardelli has been named the following director of the Bureau of Financial Geology and state geologist of Texas.
Moscardelli takes over the management position of the oldest and second largest analysis establishment at The College of Texas at Austin on March 17. She brings to the place greater than 20 years of expertise in power analysis in business and academia, most just lately main the bureau’s largest analysis program: the State of Texas Superior Useful resource Restoration (STARR) program, which works to reinforce the environment friendly manufacturing and profitability of power and pure assets in Texas.
“It’s a large honor and an enormous accountability to direct the following chapter of the Bureau of Financial Geology,” Moscardelli mentioned. “All through its greater than 100-year historical past, the bureau has enabled the state to sustainably and effectively develop its assets for the good thing about Texas and the nation, and it has been a key companion in making Texas the power capital of the world. The standard of the college, researchers and workers on the bureau is second to none, and I sit up for main this crew and serving to Texas deal with the power and assets challenges of the long run.”
Moscardelli would be the bureau’s ninth director and the primary girl to steer the establishment. She steps into the management position left by Scott Tinker, who led the bureau for almost 25 years earlier than retiring. Interim Director Mark Shuster will return to his position as deputy director when Moscardelli assumes management.
Based in 1909, the bureau is the most important unit inside the UT Jackson College of Geosciences and is the State of Texas Geological Survey, which advises state determination makers and businesses on points associated to state assets. For greater than a century the bureau has led analysis in power, economics and environmental points. It additionally maintains the TexNet seismic community, which displays earthquakes throughout the state and is crucial to the protection and administration of the Permian Basin, the best producing oil discipline within the nation. The bureau presently helps 250 analysis professors, researchers and workers on grants and contracts exceeding $30 million per 12 months.
Lengthy a frontrunner in oil and fuel and environmental analysis, the bureau now has main applications in hydrogen, crucial minerals, groundwater assets and geothermal power, and is a world chief in geologic carbon seize and storage analysis. Additionally it is a hub for cross-campus power analysis, working carefully with UT’s Cockrell College of Engineering, Power Institute, McCombs College of Enterprise and the Kay Bailey Hutchison Power Middle.
“The Bureau of Financial Geology is one in every of UT’s analysis engines,” Vice President for Analysis Dan Jaffe mentioned. “Whether or not it’s working with the state’s power producers or companions proper right here on the UT campus, the bureau exemplifies how power and significant minerals analysis can have a optimistic affect on the folks, communities and economic system of Texas. Dr. Moscardelli’s appointment as director exemplifies UT’s dedication to each its conventional energy in oil and fuel analysis and to an ‘all-of-the-above’ method to power analysis.”
Moscardelli first got here to the bureau in 2003 as a doctoral scholar on the Jackson College. She was there for 10 years as a scholar and researcher earlier than leaving for Equinor, a world power firm, the place she labored in analysis, exploration, and discipline improvement within the Norwegian continental shelf, offshore Canada, and the Gulf of Mexico. She returned to the bureau in 2021 to steer the STARR program. Moscardelli holds a bachelor’s diploma in Geological Engineering from Central College of Venezuela and a doctoral diploma in Geological Sciences from UT. She has additionally accomplished government improvement training on the Wharton College of Enterprise.
“We carried out an intensive nationwide seek for the bureau director, and located the very best candidate was right here the entire time,” mentioned Jackson College Dean Claudia Mora. “Throughout her lengthy profession in power and as program director for STARR, Lorena has reached throughout the state to interact power and surroundings stakeholders. She is considerate, energetic and collaborative by nature, and has a deep dedication to the bureau and its mission. I’ve each confidence that Lorena might be a robust and profitable director.”
Moscardelli mentioned that amongst her priorities as bureau director might be to extend collaboration with companions inside and out of doors the college to deal with key power and useful resource challenges of the long run. She mentioned she will even work to extend the bureau’s position within the Jackson College’s academic mission, together with exploring academic alternatives for college kids and business professionals.
