Geology & Geological Engineering Research

The Harold Hamm School of Engineering & Mines is comprised of faculty with a variety of research interests. Many of these research areas offer students the chance to work on projects that could have a significant impact on the future. Students are encouraged to engage in research and develop specialized skills and a deeper understanding of their fields of study.

Current Faculty Research Areas

Josh Crowell

Specialty Areas: geoscience education, geothermal resources, applied geophysics and environmental issues.

Project with the NDGS on a new high resolution gravity survey project for North Dakota.
Writing a free OER textbook.
3D scanning and 3D printing for classrooms and online teaching.
Increasing the number of thermal conductivity measurements we have in North Dakota to better characterize our state’s geothermal potential.
Geothermal Lab and Sample Prep Lab

Tautique Mahmood

Specialty Areas: cold region hydrology and nutrient export.

Center for Water Research studies and analyizes water resources, including their availability, quality, management, and environmental impacts.

Dexter Perkins

Maintains three online open source textbooks including a mineralogy book that is the most used in the world
Student geology field trips

Paul Ullmann

Specialty Areas: taphonomy, vertebrate paleontology

Investigating how original cells, soft tissues, and proteins can be preserved in fossil bones.
Using a new partial skeleton of the duck-billed dinosaur Edmontosaurus as a case study to explore the mechanics of bone fossilization as well as chemical alteration pathways that can lead to the exceptional preservation of soft tissues and biologic molecules in vertebrate fossils.
A virtual paleontology expedition for high school and early college students.

Kristyn Voegele

Specialty Areas: biomechancis of unique structures only known to be present in non-avian dinosaurs

Developing an NSF-funded Virtual Field Trip based on undergraduate experiences. The VFT teaches integrated math, biology, physics and geography through a virtual paleontology expedition.
Performing a proof-of-concept study to develop a non-invasive method for collecting biomechanical data from treadmill-trained chickens. This aims to provide insights into the movement of non-avian dinosaur ancestors, like Tyrannosaurus rex.
Collaborating to develop quantitative methods for comparing kinematic data. This is being applied by reanalyzing a biomechanical model of the elbow of the sauropod Dreadnoughtus schrani to see how cartilage and muscle forces affect its movement.
Modeling the lower jaw of the armored dinosaur Euoplocephalus to test the chewing hypothesis related to its unique predentary bone.

Dongmei Wang

Specialty Areas: enhanced oil recovery from conventional and unconventional formations; geothermal energy efficiency improvement; petrophysics, and contaminated soil remediation.

Advanced Subsurface Energy Recovery Lab
PetroPhysics Lab