STEVE QUAN, CHAIR

LORI BARTH, SENIOR TRUSTEE

STEPHEN KOTKAS, JUNIOR TRUSTEE

Every year the CSEG Scholarship Committee awards scholarships to deserving candidates in continuing education across Canada. In the 2022 scholarship year, over 80 high-quality applications were received from across Canada and 15 scholarships of $2,000 were awarded.

In order to qualify for a university student award, students must be enrolled at a Canadian university in an academic program leading to a career in exploration geophysics. Scholarships are awarded on the basis of academic performance, financial need, interest in geophysics and extra-curricular activities. In 2012, the Foundation introduced a new scholarship in response to the emergence of geoscience technology programs across the country. To be eligible for this scholarship, students must be enrolled full-time at an accredited educational institution in Canada leading to a degree in geoscience technology.

For students to apply for scholarships for 2023 please visit:

https://cseg.ca/students/scholarships

The CSEG Scholarship Committee is part of the CSEG Foundation, and is run each year by a minimum of three volunteers tasked with assessing scholarship applications. Scholarships are funded primarily through corporate and individual donations, and through interest generated by memorial trust funds. If you are interested in contributing, we are gratefully accepting donations. Please contact a member of the committee or mail funds to the CSEG office with cheques payable to the CSEG Foundation. We ask that you clearly indicate that the funds are for a CSEG scholarship. All donations are tax deductible and a charitable donation receipt will be issued.

Scholarships fully funded by generous donations this year were supported by:

  • The following individual donors: Ian Watson, Pierre Marechal, Darren Hinks, Nilanjan Ganguly, Dennis Ellison, Regan Kennedy, Cec Keeping, and Brian Russell.
  • Companies such as: Pulse, Tamarack Valley Energy, Ikon Science, Tourmaline, SeisWare, North American Helium, Earth Signal, Birchcliff Energy, Imperial and Key Seismic.

The CSEG Scholarship Committee would like to thank all of the generous scholarship sponsors for their support in 2022. Such sponsorship contributes greatly to the education of geophysics students, and to the advancement of the field of geophysics.

Cameron Greaves
Acadia University

I am a 4th year environmental geoscience student from Acadia University. My honours research project is involved in utilizing sub-bottom profilers and seismic reflection data to recognize and date mass-transport deposits in a basin southeast of Cape Breton Island. Next year I will be pursuing a master’s project investigating the subsurface distribution and extent of seafloor sediments on offshore banks on the Scotian Shelf to characterize sediment suitability for offshore wind foundations. Outside of school I’m an avid hiker, runner, and weightlifter.

Guy William Salomon
University of Victoria

Guy completed a MSc in Geology at the University of Cape Town and currently is a fourth year PhD student at the University of Victoria. He uses a variety of remote sensing and seismological data to investigate and characterize potentially active faults in Western Canada and along the North American plate. In his spare time, Guy enjoys hiking, cycling, ice skating, and skiing.

Jamie Chow
University of Toronto

Jamie is a third-year student at the University of Toronto pursuing a Geophysics Specialist, Mathematics Minor and GIS Minor. Over the summer, she worked on creating a low cost electromagnetic groundwater surveying device and gained an interest in instrument design. She is deeply interested in geophysics because of how it allows her to work with her hands in nature and in the lab, while also having an analytical and mathematical aspect. As she nears the end of her undergraduate degree, she is excited to see what the future of geophysics holds, and she plans to attend grad school after completing her B.Sc. In her spare time, she enjoys going on long walks, playing trivia and drawing.

Jessica Maria Tomacic
Carleton University

Jessica is in her fourth year of her Honours B.Sc. in Earth Sciences with a concentration in Geophysics at Carleton University. Currently, she is working as a research support scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada working on the TGI Critical minerals applied research project, with a focus on creating a digital spectral library which aims to better equip the mineral exploration and mining industries with high quality reflectance spectra for REE-bearing critical minerals. Through this, she has been exposed to XRD, infrared, portable XRF, SEM, and lapidary methods.

Additionally, she has been the co-president of Carleton’s undergraduate Geology Society for 3 years where she has organized a Geoscience Career Series networking event in collaboration with PDAC (Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada) as well as activities such as rock collection showcases amongst students.

In her spare time, she enjoys painting nature, reading, cooking, planning her future travels, and going to various rock collecting sites.

Jinji Li
University of Calgary

Jinji is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the CREWES research group at the University of Calgary, where he began his studies in January 2021 under the guidance of Dr. Kristopher Innanen. His research centers around full-waveform inversion (FWI), with a specific focus on the simultaneous inversion of subsurface models and source terms. Through his previous work experience in geophysics, Jinji has developed a strong foundation in areas such as signal processing, inversion, and geo-software development. He will also be co-instructing the CREWES Data Science Course in the 2023 Winter semester. In addition to his studies, Jinji also serves as the president of the Student Exploration Geophysics Association (SEGA) at the university, where he works to bridge between students and industry professionals. He is committed to becoming an accomplished geophysicist, following in the footsteps of the esteemed members of the geophysics community.

Kaiyuan Wang
McGill University

Kaiyuan is in his fourth year of his Honours B.Sc. in Physical Geography and Geology at McGill University. His initial aspiration in geophysical techniques comes from data collection during fieldwork. After discovering his true passion in Glaciers, he was struck by the range of applications of powerful and versatile numerical tools like modeling, ice-penetrating radar, signal processing, and machine learning. This new understanding pushed him to take a quantitative turn in his academic trajectory by dedicating his senior year to mathematics, geophysics, and geospatial coding courses, thus deepening his quantitative background and data-analysis skills. By pursuing a PhD in glaciology, he hopes to bridge the knowledge gaps between glacial processes and climate dynamics while branding himself as a quantitative glaciologist who develops novel methods to help other scientists answer important research questions. His hobbies include hiking, camping and reading.

Keeya Beausoleil
University of Alberta

Keeya is a 3rd-year Honours geophysics student at the University of Alberta. She can usually be found outdoors, backpacking, rock climbing, or horse-back riding with her dog. She is incredibly passionate about climate change and is determined to make a positive impact through a career in glaciology. In her free time, Keeya is a competitive powerlifter and a third-degree black belt in taekwondo. She is proud of her Metis heritage and aims to provide a welcoming space for youth in science through her involvement with WISEST and Youreka research programs.

Laleh Khadangi
University of Calgary

My name is Laleh Khadangi and I am doing a Ph.D. in geophysics at the University of Calgary. My love for nature and interest in engineering resulted in a bachelor’s degree in Mining Engineering in Iran. For my master’s I chose to study Geophysics with a focus on Earthquake Seismology. Then I moved to Australia and worked as a graduate geophysicist. I have done electrical and passive seismic surveys in several mines situated in Western Australia. The surveys were mostly for mineral exploration purposes. Eventually, I decided to do a Ph.D. in geophysics and moved to Canada to attend the University of Calgary. I am in my 4th year and my research is on passive seismic methods in monitoring CO2 storage sites. I love exploring nature in different ways, which could be traveling, backpacking, mountaineering, or imagining the subsurface using waves traveling in the earth.

Mateo Acuña-Uribe
Memorial University of Newfoundland

Mateo completed his B.Sc. (Hons) with distinction cum laude in Geology at Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS), Colombia. Currently, He is pursuing an MSc. in Earth Sciences at Memorial University of Newfoundland. His research focuses on the reservoir characterization of the Hibernia formation, Hibernia Field, offshore Newfoundland. He is continually excited by applied geophysics, especially seismic interpretation and geological modelling. He has worked in various roles that involve geophysical data acquisition and interpretation in academia and the Oil and Gas sector. He enjoys outdoor activities such as hiking and camping.

Neeraj Nainwal
Queen’s University

Neeraj Nainwal is a second-year graduate student at the Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering at Queen’s University. He received his bachelor’s degree in Geosciences Engineering from the University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, India, in 2017. After working for over a year after his bachelor’s, he received his master’s degree in Geological Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India, in 2020. His Ph.D. thesis involves the optimization of UAV-borne geophysical and hyperspectral signatures for mineral exploration under the supervision of Prof. Alexander Braun. His primary research interest includes Geophysical Inverse theory, petrophysical characterization, Groundwater contamination monitoring and numerical modelling. Outside academia, he possesses a love for mountaineering, hiking, and biking.

Paloma Helena Lira Fontes
University of Calgary

Paloma Fontes completed her B.Sc. in Geophysics at the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil) in 2018. She is currently a second-year student in the M.Sc. in Geoscience program at the University of Calgary with the CREWES Project under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Trad. Her thesis focuses on understanding how machine learning can be applied to seismic processing tasks, such as multiples attenuation. She did a summer internship at Canacol Energy Ltd. in 2022, and in the Summer of 2023, she will start another one at Chevron Canada while finishing her thesis. Additionally to seismic processing, she is interested in carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), seismic interpretation tools such as seismic attributes, AVO analysis, among other exploration geophysics tools. Paloma’s personal interests include hiking, travelling, yoga and team sports.

Pınar Gürün
Dalhousie University

Pinar’s project focuses on the investigation of the first regional characterization of the subduction bend-related normal faulting and hydration state of the incoming oceanic Juan de Fuca (JdF) plate system. To achieve this goal, she will interpret new pre-stack depth migrated reflection images and corresponding seismic attribute profiles crossing much of the offshore section of the CSZ (Cascadia Subduction Zone) and the incoming JdF plate.

Pinar completed her BSc degree at Istanbul Technical University (ITU) in Turkey in 2016. Before joining Mladen Nedimovic’s working group as a master’s student at Dalhousie University in 2021, she worked in the energy sector for about three years, working in two different renewable energy companies in Turkey. She has experience with marine data acquisition and has taken part in a research cruise totaling five weeks of ship time. Among her most notable academic recognitions are her honor graduation thesis in marine geophysics and graduating with the first-degree award from ITU, J. Ewart Blanchard Memorial Grant, and a funded scholarship by Mineral Research and Exploration General Directorate (MTA).

Serafim Grubas
University of Alberta

Serafim is a PhD student in Geophysics at the University of Alberta, under the supervision of Professor Mirko van der Baan. He received BSc (2019) and MSc (2021) degrees in Geophysics from Novosibirsk State University in Russia, where his research focused on using neural networks to boost processing of microseismic data and solve the eikonal equation. He also gained industry experience through internships at Gazpromneft, working on projects involving microseismic data processing and compression of seismic data. His current PhD research is focused on developing a fast and robust framework for the detection and localization of earthquakes from continuous data, using recent advances in machine learning. In his spare time, he enjoys soccer, volleyball, camping and snowboarding.

Yi Guo
University of Alberta

Yi is pursuing a Ph.D. degree in geophysics at the University of Alberta. She is working under Professor Mauricio Sacchi at the SAIG group. Her research interest is optimal seismic acquisition design and hopefully lowering the acquisition cost with fewer sources or receivers. She loves geophysics, and is willing to devote her whole career to geophysics. Her career plan is to be a professor or instructor in the future to teach the younger generation geophysics to explore geoscience together.