Luk Peeters
Dr Luk Peeters has over 15 years of research experience in risk and impact analysis and water resources management, with an emphasis on conceptualisation, numerical modelling & uncertainty analysis, geostatistics and machine learning. He obtained his PhD in geology from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and joined CSIRO Land and Water in 2010 as research scientist. Dr Peeters leads the risk and impact analysis team in the Trusted Environmental and Geological Information project, which evaluates potential impact on water and the environment of energy resource developments, such as hydrogen, oil and gas in Queensland.He authored over 70 peer reviewed international journal papers and reports, including the Australian Groundwater Modelling Guidelines and the IESC Explanatory Note on Uncertainty Analysis in Groundwater Modelling.
Victoria Fitzgerald
Victoria Fitzgerald entered the CCS industry in 2019, bringing with her over 30 years of petroleum industry experience mainly in exploration, with a focus on thermal history modelling. She obtained her BSc in Earth Science from the University of Melbourne and her Honours degree in Petroleum Geology and Geophysics from the University of Adelaide (NCPGG). She joined the CarbonNet Project after a brief stint as a Science teacher, and now leads the Storage team of in-house and consultant industry experts as they navigate their way to making a Declaration of Identified Storage Formation for the Pelican potential storage formation in the Gippsland Basin, offshore Victoria, Australia.
Ben Clennell
Dr. Michael (Ben) Clennell is a Senior Principal Research Scientist with a background specialization in rock physical properties. His research spans petrophysics, geomechanics, structural geology and marine and petroleum geology, applied to onshore and offshore oil and gas, subsurface storage of carbon dioxide/other gases and the understanding of geohazards including earthquakes, submarine landslides and gas hydrates. He was involved in setting up, and now leads, the Geodata Analytics Research team, working to bring data analytics and data management expertise to all areas of energy resources research.
Geoffrey O’Brien
Dr Geoffrey O’Brien is the Chief Scientist for CO2CRC. Geoff has over 35 years’ experience in the marine research, petroleum and CCS sectors and has worked in and for the petroleum industry as a petroleum systems and CCS technical specialist. He has also worked for Geoscience Australia, where he was the Research Group Leader for the Marine Environment & Offshore Petroleum Group, as a research consultant at the University of Adelaide, as the Energy Geoscience Manager at Geoscience Victoria and as the Chief Geoscientist for NOPTA. Dr O’Brien has a comprehensive knowledge of Australia's sedimentary basin systems and their petroleum potential and over the last 15 years has become increasingly involved in the CCS sector. A passion is the development of tailored and targeted CCS work programs that relate specifically to the ultimate regulatory requirements, thereby facilitating the Pathway to Storage and providing greater efficiencies for CCS project proponents.
Noel Merrick
Dr Noel Merrick is a groundwater modeller, hydrogeologist and geophysicist with over 50 years experience in the groundwater profession. He retired in 2009 as an Associate Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney, where he was Director of the National Centre for Groundwater Management and ran courses in Groundwater Modelling, Groundwater Geophysics and Groundwater Policy and Management. Since then he led a small business enterprise (HydroSimulations) specialising in groundwater modelling and peer review services and initiated another business (HydroAlgorithmics) with son Damian for water software development, in particular AlgoMesh which is used globally by groundwater modellers. He has a background in education, research and consultancy. As a consultant, he has undertaken many environmental impact studies for major infrastructure, resource and mining projects. As a researcher, he pioneered methods for resource sustainability quantification and management, particularly using optimisation techniques, and has been engaged in research projects with the Aquaculture, Rice, Cotton and Contaminant CRCs. He has participated on many government and research expert panels, and has been a modelling advisor to the Commonwealth government and to five State governments. He frequently provides expert witness testimony at Court.
William (Bill) Power
William (Bill) Power is a Perth-based structural geologist/consultant and independent researcher with over 30 years experience in work with geological faults, fault zones, and fractured rock masses. He is originally from the USA, but has been in Australia for the last 30 years. He has worked as a researcher and consultant in many areas related to geological faults in both oil and gas and minerals. His interests span earthquake hazards, structural geology, mineral exploration and production, hydrogeology, and oil and gas related fault seal, wellbore stability, and insitu stress estimation.
Victor Violante
Victor Violante joined APPEA in April 2023 as General Manager – Policy & Advocacy, heading up APPEA’s policy work and supporting the Chief Executive in APPEA’s national political and stakeholder engagement. Victor has almost 20 years’ experience working in and around federal politics, government, policy development and media. Prior to joining APPEA Victor was the Deputy CEO at the Australian Forest Products Association, and previously worked as a policy adviser to the then-Opposition Leader Bill Shorten advising on environment, energy and climate change; science, industry and innovation; and education, skills and training. Prior to that Victor spent 6 years as a journalist in Canberra, before moving into political advising as press secretary and then chief of staff to an ACT Government Minister.