Satinder Chopra - 2017
Inquisitive, creative, forward-thinking: these are only a few words that describe the 2017 CSEG Symposium honouree, Satinder Chopra. Satinder is a man who needs little introduction, as he has impacted so many aspects of the geophysical community as a whole. His plethora of articles, papers, and books on a wide range of topics, from seismic attributes, like curvature, to other reservoir characterization methods has made him a recognizable name on the Canadian and international scene. He remains to this day an active member of the CSEG and is most remarkably known for his 11 years’ of service as Chief Editor of the CSEG RECORDER, shaping it into the well-known publication it is today. While his passion is writing, he has also been an educator, giving presentations and teaching courses that have influenced the minds of young and old geophysicists alike. But even with all of these accomplishments, he remains humble and continuously strives to do better. Satinder delivers value back to the geophysical community while measuring and quantifying value of geophysics in his work. It is because of this tireless effort that he was chosen to be the Honouree for the 2017 Symposium.
The CSEG Symposium is a unique educational event and this year will focus attention on the “creative measures” that add value to the integration of geophysics, geology, and engineering. This theme also embodies Satinder’s curiosity and tenacity in his endless search for value-driven answers in the seismic realm.
For more information on Satinder, please read his full bio below or better yet, read his interview in the CSEG RECORDER.
Full Biography
Satinder Chopra received M.Sc. and M.Phil. degrees in physics from Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla, India. He joined the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) of India in 1984 and served there till 1997. In 1998 he joined CTC Pulsonic at Calgary, which later became Scott Pickford and Core Laboratories Reservoir Technologies. Currently, he is working as Chief Geophysicist (Reservoir), at Arcis Seismic Solutions, TGS, Calgary.
In the last 30 years Satinder has worked in regular seismic processing and interactive interpretation, but has spent more time in special processing of seismic data involving seismic attributes including coherence, curvature and texture attributes, seismic inversion, AVO, VSP processing and frequency enhancement of seismic data. His research interests focus on techniques that are aimed at characterization of reservoirs. He has published 8 books and more than 340 papers and abstracts and likes to make presentations at any beckoning opportunity. He has been the CSEG Distinguished Lecturer for 2010-2011, the AAPG/SEG Fall Distinguished Lecturer for 2011-2012, and the EAGE e-Distinguished Lecturer for 2014-15. He is the Past Chief Editor of the CSEG RECORDER, the past member of the SEG ‘The Leading Edge’ Editorial Board, and the Ex-Chairman of the SEG Publications Committee. At present, he is the editor of the AAPG Explorer Geophysical Corner, is on the editorial board of the SEG journal ‘Geophysics’, and is the co-editor of the ‘Canadian Journal of Exploration Geophysics’.
He is the recipient of several awards at ONGC, CSEG, SEG, AAPG and APEGA and more recently has received the ‘SEG Best Poster’ Award for his paper entitled ‘Churning seismic attributes with principal component analysis’, presented at the 2014 SEG Convention held at Denver, the 2014 CSEG Honourary Membership Award, the APEGA ‘Fellow Geoscientists Canada’ and the ‘2013 Frank Spragins Technical Award’, the ‘2013 AAPG Jules Braunstein Award’ for the Best Poster Presentation at the Annual Convention, the 2012 GeoConvention Best Poster Award (as co-author) for the poster entitled ‘Determination of Elastic Constants using Extended Elastic Impedance’, the AAPG George C. Matson Award for the ‘Best Oral Presentation’ for his paper entitled ‘Delineating stratigraphic features via cross-plotting of seismic discontinuity attributes and their volume visualization’, presented at the 2010 AAPG Annual Convention held at New Orleans, the ‘Top 10 Paper’ Award for his poster entitled ‘Extracting meaningful information from seismic attributes’, presented at the 2009 AAPG Annual Convention held at Denver, the ‘Best Poster’ Award for his paper entitled ‘Seismic attributes for fault/fracture characterization’, presented at the 2008 SEG Convention held at Las Vegas, the ‘Best Paper’ Award for his paper entitled ‘Curvature and iconic Coherence-Attributes adding value to 3D Seismic Data Interpretation’ presented at the CSEG Technical Luncheon, Calgary, in January 2007 and the 2005 CSEG Meritorious Services Award. He and his colleagues have received the CSEG Best Poster Awards in successive years from 2002 to 2005.
Awards in successive years from 2002 to 2005. He is a member of SEG, CSEG, CSPG, CHOA (Canadian Heavy Oil Association), EAGE, AAPG, APEGA (Association of Professional Engineers, Geoscientists of Alberta) and TBPG (Texas Board of Professional Geoscientists). He is an AAPG Certified Petroleum Geophysicist, an APEGA Professional Geophysicist and TBPG Professional Geoscientist.
