
Dr. Bo Zhang, PhD, PEng
Assistant Professor
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 4 post-doc fellow, 11 PhD students, 3 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 Professor
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 5 million CAD research grants and published over 40 journals on GeoResource releated research.

Dr. Gamze Erdogan Erten
Postdoctoral Researcher
Co-supervised 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. Yiding Sun
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Also works in Occupational Ergonomics Research Lab
Her research focuses on developing an agent-enabled, AI-driven integration framework that advances digital transformation in subusurface energy development, including CO2 storage, geothermal systems and oil and gas industry.

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.

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.

Aodi Liu
PhD student
Aodi Liu is a PhD student specializing in physics-informed machine learning, surrogate modeling, and LLMs for subsurface energy systems. His research covers reservoir simulation, production and pressure prediction, automated history matching, and AI-enabled petroleum engineering.

Liang Xin
PhD student
Liang is a PhD student in mining and geotechnical engineering. His research focuses on intelligent mining-safety monitoring using FBG sensing, UAV mapping, numerical modeling, and digital twins, with applications to slope stability, deformation monitoring, risk assessment, and early warning.

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.

Bingyu Xie
PhD Student
Co-supervised 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.

Debastuti Ghosh
PhD Student
Co-supervised 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.

Georgios Tsekeris
PhD Student
Co-supervised 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.

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.

Raahim Khan
Research Assistant and Casual Software Engineer
Raahim Khan is a third-year Computer Science student at the University of Alberta and a data scientist in our team. He’s building the Geology agent to analyze subsurface data and create subsurface model.

Usaid Ahmed
Research Assistant and Casual Software Engineer
Usaid Ahmed is a Research Assistant on the Geo-Resource Agent platform, where he designs the multi-agent orchestration architecture and enhances the frontend. He is also integrating the Production Agent, strengthening its analytical tools, and linking production data to economic metrics.

Yang Su
Visiting PhD student
A PhD student in structural geology and clastic sedimentology, she specializes in the quantitative characterization of ultra-deep reservoirs through multi-well log integration.

Alishbah Bashir
Mitacs Globalink Research Intern
Alishbah is a Mitacs intern working on methane emission agent.

Yassine Yahyaoui
Mitacs Globalink Research Intern
Yassine is a Mitacs intern specializing in LLMs, agentic AI, RAG, machine learning, and scientific AI. His research focuses on reservoir inversion from monitoring data using backpropagation through differentiable machine-learning models.

Yaoyao Sun
Visiting PhD student
Yaoyao focuses on: (1) Acid fracturing stimulation in ultra-deep fractured-cavity carbonate reservoirs;
(2) Fracture initiation and propagation in radial wellbore-controlled fracturing;
(3) Hydraulic jetting acid fracturing for ultra-deep tight carbonates with reduced breakdown pressure
Our brilliant team alumni

Xiaoyan Ou
MSc Student
Now at Thurber Engineering Ltd.
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).
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).

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.

Guopeng Huang
Visiting PhD Student
Guopeng focuses on (1) competitive Propagation Mechanism of Multi- Fractures in Fractured Reservoirs;
(2) Longitudinal propagation mechanism and control method of hydraulic fractures under multi-layered superposed formations;

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.

Nouha Dhifi
Mitacs Globalink Research Internship
Nouha Dhifi is a Mitacs Research Intern in our group working on hybrid CO ₂–water geothermal systems. She is currently pursuing an engineering degree in Energy and Environmental Technology at the National Engineering School of Gafsa, Tunisia.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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.













