Brian McPherson
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Utah and Director of the Southwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership. For the past 10 years, Dr. McPherson has conducted carbon management and engineering research, especially geological sequestration studies, but including other modes of carbon management as well, such as biomimetic and other approaches. Technical focus areas include groundwater and reservoir simulation, multiphase flow analysis and simulation, rock deformation, and subsurface chemically reactive transport analysis and simulation. McPherson and his research group maintain a high pressure/high temperature laboratory capable of combined multiphase flow and rock mechanical response experimentation, and are currently conducting flow tests to quantify diagenetic changes on rocks during CO₂ sequestration. Other research that Dr. McPherson continues to pursue includes coupled heat and fluid processes in sedimentary basins and geothermal systems, and petroleum generation and migration processes

Stefan Bachu
Principal Scientist, Alberta Innovates - Technology Futures in Canada. Dr. Bachu is an internationally recognized expert in carbon storage. He has spent over a decade researching carbon storage, and over 20 years researching the subsurface flow of fluids and heat in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Dr. Bachu holds advanced degrees in water resources, hydrogeology and transport processes. He has participated in several national and international carbon management initiatives. In addition to these activities, Dr. Bachu is associate editor (for CO₂ geological storage) of the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, and has been an adjunct professor at both the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta. Dr. Bachu has published more than 150 papers in journals and conference proceedings, and made more than 230 presentations at various conferences and symposia, of which almost half are on the subject of CO₂ geological storage.

Steve Bryant
Dr. Bryant joined The University of Texas at Austin in 2002 following six years with the Texas Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics. He is an associate professor with a Ph.D. in chemical engineering. Dr. Bryant has eight years of industrial experience and has authored one book and more than 60 technical articles. His research interests include petrophysics, reactive flow and transport (with applications to oil and gas production and to groundwater contamination and remediation), the relationship between microstructure and macroscopic properties of granular media, and applications of large-scale computing.

Xiaochun Li
Professor, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Wuhan, China. At the request of the Chinese Academy of Science, Professor Li founded the CO₂ Geological Storage Group at the Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics. His group has studied the locations, annual emissions and concentrations of large-scale point CO₂ sources of China, estimated the storage capacities of the major oil and gas reservoirs, coal basins and saline aquifers. These results show the importance of deep aquifer storage for the reduction of CO₂ emissions in China. Recently, the group finished a CO₂/N2-ECBM pilot test in a coal-mine tunnel at a depth of 620m. The produced methane was used for power generation.

In 2000, as part of the Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth, Professor Li estimated the CO₂ storage capacity in Japan. A long-term stability assessment methodology for basins based on tectonic activities and crustal structures was proposed in this research. He also recommended a subset of stable basins as storage candidates. During this period, Professor Li was a reviewer for the “IPCC Carbon Capture and Storage Special Report.” Professor Li is currently conducting research on reactive transport of CO₂ and developing safety assessments, monitoring technologies, and geo-mechanical stability analyses for CO₂-ECBM and saline aquifer storage.

Pete McGrail
Dr. McGrail is a Laboratory Fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and a leader in carbon capture and sequestration research. Dr. McGrail directs a wide variety of research projects in greenhouse gas emission management aimed at developing technologies deployed both above- and below-ground. He is working on new types of nanostructured sorbents for CO₂ capture from fossil–fuel power plants, recently featured in the journal Nature Materials. Dr. McGrail manages the Zero Emission Research & Technology Center at PNNL, which is conducting groundbreaking work on the reactivity of molecular water solvated in supercritical CO₂, among other basic science studies important for designing CO₂ capture and sequestration systems. He directs PNNL’s research contributions on the recently formed National Risk Assessment Program, and a field research pilot study near Wallula, Washington, to determine the suitability of deep flood basalt formations for permanent CO₂ sequestration.

Mohammad Khaleel
Dr. Khaleel is Director of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Computational Sciences and Mathematics (CSM) Division and a PNNL Fellow. The CSM Division provides scientific and technological solutions through the integration of high-performance computing, data-intensive computing, computational sciences, mathematics, scalable data management, and bioinformatics to advance the Laboratory's mission areas.

Dr. Khaleel is an international leader in multiphysics and multiscale modeling of solid oxide fuel cells and lightweight materials. Khaleel's current research interests are tuned to world energy systems and the future role for fuel cell systems. He is focused on the development of computational methods and tools for simulating advanced forming and joining technologies, multiphysics modeling of solid oxide fuel cells, basic material modeling, and probabilistic mechanics. He also serves as the national coordinator for modeling activities associated with solid oxide fuel cells for the Solid Energy Conversion Alliance - SECA - program.

Tom Brouns
Mr. Brouns manages the Clean Fossil Energy (CFE) market sector within Pacific North-west National Laboratory’s Energy and Environment Directorate. Mr. Brouns brings to this position more than two decades of experience in chemical processing and subsurface research and simulation, which are central to the CFE market sector activ-ities in emissions management, including carbon capture and geologic sequestration. Mr. Brouns also possesses extensive knowledge of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford Site and environmental cleanup strategies and technologies. Utilizing his strong relationship management and team building skills, Mr. Brouns has established a solid reputation for capably directing large, complex demonstration and research and development programs for DOE and commercial clients, and has successfully brought together universities, industry, international institutions, and national labora¬tories in collaborative efforts to develop, demonstrate, and deploy advanced tech¬nologies. He assumed his current role in August 2010 and prior to that served as the manager of EED’s Environmental Health and Remediation market sector. Mr. Brouns joined PNNL in 1987.