Bureau Researchers Mentored Student Teams that Won Top Prizes at Geosciences Hackathon

The second annual Geosciences Hackathon, organized by the Jackson School of Geosciences and UT’s Open-Source Program Office, was recently held in Austin. The Bureau played a significant role in organizing this year’s event, with Yangkang Chen and Sergey Fomel on the organizing committee. The event was sponsored by ConocoPhillips and Sandia National Laboratories.

This year’s theme was “Change Over Time.” 20 students divided into teams and worked on seven creative projects, analyzing changes in Earth’s systems that happen both in real-time and over millions of years in geological time. A panel of external judges evaluated the results.

Student teams mentored by Bureau researchers won the top prizes. First place was awarded to Xuesong Ding’s team, which analyzed “Earth surface change over time in response to sea level changes.” Toti Larson’s team received the audience choice award for its project, “Predicting cyclothems using mineralogy and wireline data: implications for basin characterization and identification of pay.”

The event highlighted both the Bureau’s computational expertise and its contribution to the educational mission of the Jackson School.

Please join us in congratulating these exceptional mentors and their winning teams!