NGWA Event and Education Recordings Archive

Robert Puls is Director of the Oklahoma Water Survey and Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma. He was employed by the USEPA for almost 25 years. Puls was the Technical Lead for the USEPA Study on Hydraulic Fracturing and Drinking Water Resources prior to his retirement in early 2012. As Technical Lead he met with numerous industry representatives, non-governmental organizations, federal agencies, and state agencies responsible for oil and gas regulatory oversight. Puls has a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona as well as degrees from the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin.

Jean-Philippe Nicot is a geological engineer and a research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas at Austin. He holds a doctorate in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas. Nicot has been working on environmental issues for more than two decades. His current research interests are diverse and include assessment of water use and water disposal practices by the oil and gas industry. Other topics of interest are brackish water desalination and concentrate disposal, natural contamination of aquifers, and potential risks of CO2 storage to aquifers.

Evaluation of the impact of climate variability and land use change on groundwater recharge, application of numerical models for simulating variably saturated flow and transport, controls on nitrate contamination in aquifers.