Satinder Chopra - 2014
CSEG Honorary Membership Award Recipient for Satinder Chopra
Citation by Lee Hunt
I am one among many to have cited Satinder Chopra for the CSEG Honorary Membership award. I say this in all sincerity because of Satinder’s overwhelming worthiness for this honour. Few there are who have given as much to their society through committee work, technical accomplishments, and a seemingly inexhaustible will to raise the standards of their colleagues. As innumerable as Satinder’s contributions have been, they are marked by several specific and special initiatives that have materially changed the CSEG for the better. These extraordinary contributions were made possible by a creative and open mind, a strong ambition to improve his life and the professional lives of others, and an enduring generosity of heart. How can there be a list of Honorary Members of the CSEG that does not include the name of Satinder Chopra?
The CSEG RECORDER has a very high standard of technical excellence and aesthetic character. The RECORDER’s modern era of excellence is largely due to Satinder’s efforts as its chief editor. Acting as the chief editor of the RECORDER is an enormous undertaking; Satinder performed that onerous and important duty for eleven long years. That is eleven years working to make the RECORDER a flagship periodical for the Canadian Geoscience community. Satinder should be inducted as an Honorary Member for this contribution alone, but he has done so much more for the CSEG. He has volunteered for committee duty in manifold fashion. He has acting as CSEG Convention technical chair on 3 occasions, and as a committee member 3 other times. Satinder has also been a longstanding member of the CDL committee, where he currently stands as Committee Chair. Satinder Chopra was also the 2010/2011 CSEG Distinguished Lecturer.
Satinder has been an excellent ambassador for the CSEG, and for the Canadian geophysical community. He has authored or co-authored greater than 140 journal papers, and either presented or co-authored over 180 oral presentations and posters for the CSEG, SEG, and AAPG.
Satinder has also led the publishing of 8 books, 5 of them with the SEG. This includes his very useful and famous book ‘3D Seismic Attributes for Prospect Identification and Reservoir Characterization’. Satinder is a member of many technical societies, and has chaired or participated in numerous CSEG, SEG, AAPG, and APEGA committees including the SEG Interpretation Committee and Distinguished Lecturer Committee. He has also received some 23 notable, peer bestowed awards. Without Satinder’s contributions, Canada and the CSEG would suffer from a great reduction in representation.
Satinder has shown great initiative in many ways, some of which have changed the CSEG forever. Satinder was one of the persons who suggested that the CSEG should have its own Distinguished Lecture Tour. Without Satinder’s efforts, we might never have had a CDL Tour, one of the great inclusive, national, educational services that the CSEG offers. The CDL Tour is an integral vehicle for Ambassador Events that serve our members across Canada as well as our learning institutions. Satinder also was the sole person who proposed that the CSEG should have an annual Symposium. The CSEG Symposium is one of the great recent success stories on our society. There are numerous Symposia that honour great contributors, but Satinder’s idea of the CSEG Symposium married the notion with a desire to address an industrial educational need. By adding this element, Satinder’s Symposium delivers something that no other earth science symposium does: a day of value oriented case studies. The Symposium is an answer to a burning need: to both recognize a great peer, and to support and promote the usefulness of our work.
Satinder Chopra deserves to be awarded Honorary membership for reasons innumerable, summarized in broad strokes here. He has sacrificed his time for us, he has made us better, and he has raised our international profile. Satinder has also had a hand in initiating several of the CSEG’s now crucial endeavors: the CDL Tour and the CSEG Symposium. It will be the CSEG’s honour to make Satinder an Honorary member.
