Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering assistant professor Wen Song received the 2023 Arie van Weelden Award from the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) in June. Given annually, the award recognizes a young professional who has made a highly significant contribution to one or more of the association’s disciplines.
Song is a George H. Fancher Assistant Professor of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering in UT PGE. Her research focuses on understanding and leveraging the fundamental micro/nanoscale transport dynamics that dictate subsurface energy and environmental resources. Her key contributions toward addressing the challenge of supplying reliable, sustainable energy to the world include the development of the first operando visualization platform that allows in situ observation of reaction kinetics and reactive transport within nanoporous materials, and pioneering the field of real-rock microfluidics to enable direct, real-time, pore-scale visualization of transport dynamics in micro/nanofluidic systems with representative geometric and chemical characteristics.
Song is a recipient of a 2022 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation to investigate the recovery of rare earth elements from clays. The CAREER awards are among the NSF’s most prestigious offerings in support of early career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, and to lead advances in their institutional and departmental missions. She has also received an American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Grant, which aims to promote the careers of young faculty by supporting research of high scientific caliber.
Song teaches PGE 383: Small-Scale Fluid Flow, PGE 323K: Reservoir Engineering I, and PGE 383: Geothermal and Sustainable Energy Resources. She obtained her PhD in Energy Resources Engineering and PhD minor in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 2019.