Dr. Bo Zhang, PhD, PEng
Assistant Professer
Dr. Zhang is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta and a registered professional engineer (P.Eng) in Canada.
He is the founder and principal investigator (PI) of the GeoCloud Research Group at the University of Alberta.
Currently, Dr. Zhang is supervising 2 post-doc fellow, 7 PhD students, 2 master students, 2 undergraduate students and 1 assistant researcher from geotechnical engineering, mining engineering, petroleum engineering, software engineering and computer science at University of Alberta.
Meet the Team
Our brilliant team members in Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta
Dr. Bo Zhang, PhD, PEng
Assistant Professer
Principle Investigator
Dr. Zhang is the founder and principal investigator (PI) for GeoResourceCloud Research Group at University of Alberta. Over the last three years, Dr. Zhang has been awarded over 1 million Canadian dollar research grants and published over 20 journals on GeoResource releated research.
Dr. Gamze Erdogan Erten
Postdoctoral Researcher
Co-supervise with Jeff Boisvert
Her research focuses on optimizing well control, including the number of injection wells, their locations, and injection rates for carbon capture and storage (CCS) using surrogate model-based deep reinforcement learning.
Dr. Chao Yu
Postdoctoral Researcher
His research focus on development and utilization of Geothermal resources, including 1)numerical simulation of coupled THMC model, 2)experimental and simulation study on the mechanism of heat transfer in complex fractures, and 3)evaluation, optimization and decision-makings in geothermal system.
Xuehan Yin
PhD Student
As a PhD student majoring in civil engineering, she has a background in geotechnical engineering, rock mechanics, and rock dynamics and research interests revolve around developing simulations of subsurface energy developments through the coupling DEM-FEM methods.
Arqam Muqtadir
PhD Student
As a highly enthusiastic and motivated PhD student, he has worked as a Researcher at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia, for a period of five years (2018 to 2023) prior to joining UofA in January 2023. He mainly focus on research in the area of Reservoir Geomechanics.
Bingyu Xie
PhD Student
Co-supervise with Rick Chalaturnyk
As a PhD student, her research focuses on investigating the hydro-geomechanical characterization and permeability evolution of Inclined Heterolithic Stratification (IHS) in McMurry formation. This study aims to provide essential parameters for reservoir system simulations and enhance the efficiency.
Yixuan Li
PhD Student
As a PhD student in geotechnical engineering, Yixuan has a background in urban underground space engineering, rock mechanics, and shale gas development. In her previous research, she focused on methane deflagration fracturing impact on shale micro-structure and permeability.
Jia Liu
PhD Student
Jia is a PhD student majoring in civil engineering. He has a background in geotechnical engineering, which specialized in simulation for salt cavern storage and has conducted studies on it. His future research focuses on the simulation for underground hydrogen storage (UHS).
Debastuti Ghosh
PhD Student
Co-supervise with Jeff Boisvert
As a PhD Student, she has completed her Bachelor's from Presidency University, India, in 2016 and her first Master's from IIT (ISM) Dhanbad, India, in 2019, both in Applied Geology. She worked at Schlumberger as a petrophysicist for the North American team and received her second Master's from IPGP.
Walid Ben Saleh
PhD Student
As a PhD student, his research focus reservoir modeling and characterization, reservoir geomechanics, hydraulic fracturing and quantifying the geomechanical and geological uncertainties in Carbon storage simulation models by developing innovative data-driven models and data assimilation workflows.
Georgios Tsekeris
PhD Student
Co-supervise with Clayton Deutsch
As a Master's student, his research focus on Geostatistical Modeling considering High-Resolution Stratigraphic Models. In 2023, along with his supervisor and co-supervisor, Dr. Zhang Bo, he published a Lesson titled "Categorical Variable Distributions in Geostatistics" on GeostatisticsLessons.com.
Xiaoyan Ou
MSc Student
As a MSc student major in Civil Engineering specified in Geotechnical Engineering, her work focuses on the Coupled Flow-Geomechanics Upscaling techniques of predicting the soil strength parameters of the heterogeneous McMurray formation (Oil Sands) with the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN).
Reine Akchr
MSc Student
As a MSc student in civil and geotechnical engineering with a background in petroleum engineering, she studies Enhanced Geothermal Systems in Precambrian basement rocks, integrating field data, THM modeling, and prior FES research on petrophysics and geothermal potential.
Muhammad Farooq Zia
MSc Student
As a PhD Student, his research interests include modeling and simulation of transport phenomena in porous media. He is currently working on uncertainty quantification in subsurface CO2 storage, and value of information framework that are essential to large-scale CCUS decision-making.
Xiaoxue Jiang
Visiting PhD Student
PhD student researching geothermal resource exploration and development. Her work focuses on heat flow, lithospheric structure, and reservoir conditions to understand high-temperature geothermal systems, improve assessment methods, and guide sustainable resource utilization.
Zhaowen Hu
Visiting PhD Student
Visiting Ph.D. student from China Univ. of Petroleum–Beijing researching advanced drilling tools to boost performance, safety & cost-effectiveness. Focus: 1) Energy-Gathered Nesting Plugging for lost circulation; 2) Vortex Cuttings Cleaner for wellbore cleaning efficiency.
Xinruo Ma
Visiting PhD Student
Visiting PhD student from China Univ. of Petroleum–Beijing researching hydrocarbon accumulation models controlled by faults & overpressure. Interests: (1) pore pressure prediction, (2) quantitative fault activity, (3) fault–paleo-pressure evolution & its impact on hydrocarbon migration.
Heng Yang
Visiting PhD Student
Visiting PhD student from China Univ. of Petroleum (Beijing) researching: (1) intelligent analysis/control of lost circulation; (2) real-time & ahead-of-bit prediction of rock properties; (3) intelligent decision-making software for drilling
Peng Xu
Visiting PhD Student
As a visiting PhD student from the China University of Petroleum (Beijing). His research focuses on the mechanism of abrasive water jet rock perforation and its influence on fracture initiation. His research interests covers several topics.
Zekai Tang
Visiting PhD Student
PhD student with background in Petroleum Eng., Reservoir Simulation & Advanced Fluid Mechanics in Porous Media. His research consists of numerical modeling of CO₂ burial in depleted shale gas reservoirs, focusing on THM coupling & multi-physics simulations in complex 3D fracture networks.
Huayan Mu
Visiting PhD Student
Visiting PhD student from China Univ. of Petroleum (Beijing). Her research applies information & intelligent technologies in oil & gas engineering, focusing on: (1) predicting wellbore lost circulation risk; (2) identifying key characteristics such as location, pressure & fracture size.
Alumni
Our brilliant team alumni
Shuxin Qiao
Research Assistant
Now at Singapore LNG
As a research assistant, he is responsible for: 1) the implementation of data science in subsurface energy development Including CO2 THMC coupled flow migration with a focus in building proxy model by Deep Learning methods and 2) development of related software and frontend.
Richao Cong
Visiting PhD Student
His research focuses on the geomechanical properties and fracture propagation mechanisms of thin interbeds in coal measure strata. He is proficient in grid nanoindentation tests, SEM-EDS techniques, conventional geomechanical tests, and the finite-discrete element combined method (FDEM).
Yaopeng Ji
Visiting PhD Student
As a visiting PhD student at the University of Alberta from Jilin University, He is focusing on the disaster-causing mechanisms of high-stress, deeply incised river valleys in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau.
Xiaozhou Qin
Visiting PhD Student
As a visiting PhD student from China University of Petroleum (Beijing), her research focus the stress evolution and permeability enhancement mechanism of multistage cavity completion in coalbed methane horizontal wells.
Xinyu Zhuang
Visiting PhD Student
As a visiting PhD student from the China University of Petroleum (East China), his research primarily covers: (1) CO₂ flooding and geological sequestration, (2) Intelligent prediction and optimization, and (3) numerical simulation of wellbore-reservoir coupling mechanisms.
Mingsheng Liu
Visiting PhD Student
As a visiting PhD student from China University of Petroleum. His research interests covers 1) Supercritical CO2 fracturing of unconventional reservoirs, 2) Fluid mechanics and jet simulation, 3) Numerical simulation of fracture initiation and propagation by FEM/FDEM.
Yaxin Shang
Visiting PhD Student
As a visiting PhD student from China University of Petroleum(East China), her research focus the combination of water-rock reaction software (Tough react) and geological modeling software (Petrel) to explore the potential of sandstone gas reservoirs for geological storage or enhanced gas recovery.
Mingzhe Gu
Visiting PhD Student
As a visiting PhD student from China University of Petroleum. His research interests covers 1) Hydraulic fracturing of unconventional reservoirs, 2) Micromechanical characterization of unconventional reservoirs, 3) Numerical Simulation of fracture propagation by FEM/DEM/FDEM.
Oumaima Arfaoui
Visiting Master's Student
As a Mitacs Globalink Research Intern at the University of Alberta, Oumaima, originally from the National Engineering School of Tunisia, is conducting her master's thesis project on the impact of structural uncertainties on CO₂ storage efficiency in deep saline aquifers.
Arpita Gajanan Joshi
Undergraduate Research Intern
As a dual degree student (B.Tech + M.Tech) at the Indian Institute of Technology and intern researcher at University of Alberta, her research focus on inverse modeling of CO2 plume dynamics to predict subsurface permeability and the application of machine learning in energy systems.
Yicheng Pan
Undergraduate Research Intern
As a Mitacs summer intern, Yicheng Pan came as one of the top students in Tsinghua University, which has brought him a solid mathematical and scientific foundation. Pan has demonstrated a strong academic performance and a keen interest in the realm of energy policy.
Vaniya Tariq
Undergraduate Research Intern
As a Intern Researcher, she completed her second year of undergraduate studies in Computer Software Engineering Cooperative Program and had the incredible learning opportunity to work on the CCUS web application platform alongside PhD and Postdoc students within the group as a DRA student.
Brayan Farid Aguilar Rubial
Undergraduate Research Intern
As an ELAP research intern undergraduate student from Universidad Industrial de
Santander, his research focused on the estimation of the recovery factor by the implementation of carbon dioxide as a product of trigeneration through numerical simulation of reservoirs (GEM and Winprop).
HsuanHsi Chen
Undergraduate Research Intern
As Mitacs summer intern, HsuanHsi came as one of the top students in National Taiwan University. Her research project focus on developing an LLM-powered agent platform with full stack toolchain. Her plan includes design and implement backend server with communication and buildup economy agent.