Earth Sciences Division Staff: Keni Zhang

Biographical Summary

Dr. Keni Zhang, Geological scientist at LBNL, is the primary developer of the TOUGH2-MP codes at LBNL (Zhang et al. 2008) and a known expert in parallel reservoir simulation. He has led numerous projects for parallel reservoir simulator development involving complex mathematical computational modeling in both the unsaturated and saturated zones, on both a small and large scale. Since 2000, Dr. Zhang has been involved in a variety of research projects that have focused on computing techniques to simulate multi-component and multiphase fluid flow in the fields of nuclear waste disposal, CO2 geologic sequestration, gas-hydrate research, and groundwater hydrology.

Research Interests

• Developing parallel computing codes for large-scale, multi component, multiphase fluid and heat flow simulation.
• Large-scale (multi-million-gridblock model) modeling studies for groundwater flow and contaminant transport in saturated or unsaturated porous and fractured media.
• Numerical modeling studies for CO₂ geological sequestration, nuclear waste disposal and geothermal reservoir investigation.
• Investigations of gas production potential from gas hydrate deposits.

Education

• PhD, 2000, The University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, Groundwater hydrology.
• M.Sc., 1996, International Institute for Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering, Delft, Netherlands, Hydrological Engineering.
• B.Eng., 1985, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China,  Geophysics.

Professional Experience

• Geological Scientist, Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, November 2002-present.
• Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, February 2000-October 2002.
• Graduate Research Assistant and Teaching Assistant, Department of Civil and Geological Engineering, The University of Manitoba, September1996 to February 2000
• Intern Hydrogeologist, Water Supply Company of Drenthe Province, The Netherlands, September 1995-September 1996
• Consulting Engineer, Dasheng S&T Engineering Co. Ltd., Shenzhen, China, January 1993-September 1994
• Assistant Engineer and Engineer, Yellow River Conservancy Commission, the Ministry of Water Conservancy, China, August 1985-December 1992.

Awards

• NFP (Netherlands Fellowship Program) fellowship by the Netherlands Government from Oct. 1994 to Sep. 1995.  
• Petro-Canada Environmental Issue Engineering Graduate Fellowship,
• 1998-1999 Neil Burgess Memorial Scholarship, 1999-2000
• Spot Award, ESD-LBNL, 2003
• Outstanding Performance Award, LBNL,2007
• Couplex-Gaz Benchmark, First Prize (Shared with AF-Colenco Ltd), French National Agency for Nuclear Waste Management, 2008.

Software Productions

• TOUGH2-MP (including 13 EOS modules), the parallel version of general purpose multiphase simulator TOUGH2.
• TMVOC-MP, a parallel numerical simulator for three-phase non-isothermal flows of multicomponent hydrocarbon mixtures in porous/fractured media.
• pT+H, the parallel version of TOUGH+HYDRATE, a gas-hydrate reservoir simulator.
• TOUGH+CO2, the new generation of TOUGH family code for simulation CO2 sequestration in saline aquifer.
• MSFLOW-MP, the parallel version of MSFLOW, a gas and oil reservoir simulator.