Consultants
KMS Technologies has various consultants on staff and from time to time we add additional ones. Presently, our key consultants are:
| Consultant | Key expertise |
| Dr. Gary Egbert | 3D EM modeling, MT processing |
| Dr. Sonya Davydycheva | 3D EM modeling |
| Tilman Hanstein | Electrical geophysics, data processing |
| Prof. Horst Rüter | Geothermal, Reflection seismology, in seam seismic, general geophysics |
| Prof. Maxim Smirnov | EM acquisition, software and 3D modeling |
| Dr. Charles Stoyer | Electromagnetics, inversion methods, geophysical interpretation software |
| Dr. Kurt M. Strack | Borehole geophysics, electromagnetics, geoInversion, general geophysics, project management, strategic project development |
Gary Egbert
Dr. G. D. Egbert is Professor of Marine Geology and Geophysics in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University, where he has taught and conducted research for nearly 25 years. His interest can broadly be described as the solution of inverse problems which combine numerical models with data, including development and implementation of algorithms and applications to large data sets to solve problems in basic and applied science. He is also interested in multivariate statistical methods, with applications to signal and array processing. He has extensive experience both in electromagnetic geophysics (data processing and inversion, from long-period studies of the deep mantle to shallow exploration problems) and in physical oceanography (data assimilation, tides, and coastal oceanography).
Professor Egbert and his group have developed novel methods for processing and inverting electromagnetic data and for oceanographic data assimilation that are in wide use. In particular, he is a leading authority on magnetotelluric (MT) data processing. His programs for remote reference and multiple-station MT processing are in wide use around the world. Prof. Egbert is also an expert on oceanographic data assimilation, and on ocean tides. His two most important papers in this field have together been cited over 600 times. Software developed by Prof. Egbert’s group for modeling and assimilation of ocean tides is now being transitioned to operational use by the US Navy. Most recently, Prof. Egbert has focused on development and application of three-dimensional inversion of MT and other electromagnetic data, and on application of data assimilation methods to Solid Earth Geophysics.
Professor Egbert is author of over 90 publications, which in total have been cited over 6000 times (ISI Web of Science). He is a member of AGU and SEG. He has received over 60 grants (40 as PI), for a total of nearly $15M from a wide range of funding agencies, including NSF, NASA, DOE, ONR, NOAA and USGS. He has served on external review panels for NASA, ONR, and DOE. In 2014 he became a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.
Sonya Davydycheva
Dr. Sofia (Sonya) Davydycheva is Manager 3D modeling for KMS-KJT. Formerly, she was President and CEO of 3DEM Holding, founded in Jan. 2010 in Houston. In that she started as consultant to KMS Technologies. She specializes in electromagnetic modeling and inversion for land, marine and borehole applications. Sofia led research and development of new electromagnetic tools and fast interpretation methods for both resistivity logging, marine and land electromagnetics while working for various oil service companies: the Central Geophysical Expedition (CGE, Moscow, 1989-2001), Schlumberger (2002-2008, Houston), EMGS Americas (2008, Houston), Pathfinder (2010-2013, Houston) and SingularEM (2013-2014).
Sofia holds Diploma degree (M.Sc. equivalent) in physics and Ph.D. in applied mathematics, both from the Lomonosov Moscow State University.
She published over 30 open-literature papers on modeling & inversion of resistivity well logging, over 20 papers on modeling marine and land EM surveys, and was credited with over 700 citations of her works in open literature. She authored and co-authored 20 international patents, and received prestigious academic awards, including: The Log Analyst Best Paper Award of SPWLA in 1999 and two Best Paper Awards (Honorable Mention) by Geophysics of SEG in 2003 and 2011. Sofia’s paper “Triaxial induction tool with electrode sleeve: FD modeling in 3D geometries” (2009) was selected as one of the "Top-50 most cited articles published in the Journal of Applied Geophysics in 2006-2011". Her 3D EM modeling software package has been used by major oil service companies.
Tilman Hanstein
Tilman Hanstein is the General manager of KMS Technologies Germany and Chief Geophysicist of KMS in Houston. He studied Geophysics at the University of Cologne with the Diploma degree 1984 (M.Sc. equivalent). His thesis deals with “Mössbauer Spectroscopy for dating geological soil minerals with iron content” which included laboratory measurements with a nuclear technique and interdisciplinary work with Geographers, Mineralogists and Physicists.
In 1984, Tilman became scientific assistant building up a new LOTEM system for hydrocarbon and geothermal exploration. His work covered different aspects of data acquisition, data processing and modeling. This resulted in several publications.
During many LOTEM field surveys and projects in Germany and abroad, Tilman gained valuable field experience in Germany, South Africa, Australia, Italy, Indonesia, and Israel.
Since 1991 Tilman has worked as free-lancer for HarbourDom GmbH in environmental geophysics including many geophysical methods.
Another aspect of Tilman’s work is in geo-hydrology. Together with a geologist, he developed software for the automatic interpretation of well test analysis and pumping tests. The program LEAKY was one the first software packages in Germany.
In 2000 he began intensive work with KMS Technologies in Germany and in Houston. The work included a feasibility studies for a new logging tool. It also included scale model experiments to support the ideas of the new logging tool and to answer some key questions for the feasibility. For that a new data acquisition system was built. This work is ongoing.
During 2003 /2004 he worked at the University of Cologne in a project for detection land mines with metal detectors.
Tilman is affiliated to DGG and SEG.
He has been part of the receiving team of the Cecil H. Green Enterprise Award for KMS Technologies at the SEG meeting in Las Vegas 2012.
Dr. Horst Rüter
Dr. Horst Rüter is Executive Advisor to KMS Technologies - KJT Enterprises Inc. His key contributions are in system design (logging tools and seismic systems) and intellectual property. He already proofed key in getting a unique patent portfolio in Through Casing Resistivity and Marine Electromagnetics in place. He also serves as President of HarbourDom Consulting, Cologne, Germany. For 32 years as head of the Geophysics Department of DMT. He nurtured the growth of the organization from a research group of the German coal mining and to Germany’s most important private geophysical contractor. During that time he was responsible for more than hundred research projects for international public and commercial agencies, and for the Mining and Oil/gas- industry. He contributed significantly to the development of 3D-seismic methods from 1975 onward. He holds patents on seismic instrumentation, specific logging instruments and marine electromagnetics. His emphasis has been to integrate geophysical techniques into mining and borehole applications.
Horst holds a Ph.D. from the Ruhr-University in Bochum, where he is now a part time professor. He is member of many professional societies and on several editorial boards and professional steering groups. Presently, he serves as President of the German Geophysical Society (DGG) and Vice- President of the Geothermal Society (GTV). Horst is widely published and wrote a textbook in in-seam seismics. He received in 2001 the Special Commendation award for taking geophysics beyond its boundaries.
Horst’s present interests are passive seismic monitoring and special logging tool developments. He is known for integrating various disciplines including advanced logging techniques for numerous applications as demonstrated in several international multi-disciplinary projects.
He has been part of the receiving team of the Cecil H. Green Enterprise Award for KMS Technologies at the SEG meeting in Las Vegas 2012.
Short resumee Publications (see Resource Library for details)
Prof. Maxim Smirnov
Prof. Maxim Smirnov is data processing Principal Consultant for KMS Technologies.
He is responsible for the software developments of electromagnetic geophysical methods within KMS, especially magnetotelluric and controlled source EM methods. He also is developing novel approaches to EM modelling and inversion.
Maxim also is key in providing KMS Cloud based MT processing services.
Maxim holds Diploma degree (M.Sc. equivalent) in physics and Ph.D. in geophysics, both from the Saint-Petersburg State University. He was docent in geophysics at University of Oulu and served as Finish Academy Research fellow from 2010 till 2015. Since 2016 he is also Ass. Prof. at Lulea Technical University in Sweden.
He published over 35 papers in peer-review journals on magnetotelluric data processing and modelling. His codes are widely used in analysis of EM data.
- Robust remote reference processing of magnetotelluric data based on algorithm described in Smirnov (2003).
- Multivariate analysis of EM geophysical data based on PCA. (Smirnov & Egbert 2012). (Object-Oriented code in Matlab)
- Multi Resolution modeling of EM field. (Cherevatova, Smirnov, & Egbert 2014). (Object-Oriented code in Matlab)
Dr. Charles Stoyer
Dr. Charles H. Stoyer is President of Interpex Limited. He received his Ph. D. in Geophysics from Penn State in 1974. His thesis entailed the first finite difference modeling of 3-dimensional electromagnetic fields in the presence of 2-D earth structures. It also included the design and construction of field equipment for frequency domain electromagnetic data acquisition and a field study in an area known for mine acid drainage.
He was a postdoctoral fellow at CIRES in Boulder, CO working with James R. Wait from 1974-75. By this time, he had authored or co-authored eight papers in peer reviewed journals. From 1975-77 he was a professor of Physics/Geology at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM and he joined the geophysics faculty at the Colorado School of Mines in 1977 where he stayed until 1985. At Mines, he developed several graduate-level courses; one in inversion theory and another in numerical modeling methods. He also implemented a graduate-level laboratory course which was designed by the department as a required core course but which faltered in the hands of older professors. On the research side, he became heavily involved in TEM studies, using controlled sources with powers of tens to hundreds of kilowatts. He implemented a computerized data acquisition system in the late 1970’s and redesigned and constructed both the controlled source and the receiver electronic systems.
Charles co-founded Integrated GeoSciences, Inc. in 1982 and co-founded Interpex Limited in 1986, where he remains today IGS was a TEM contractor in the days when "Frontier exploration areas" were popular and oil prices were predicted to soar. Interpex Limited is a software company catering mostly to the "Near-Surface" contingent of geophysics, and provides off-the-shelf software for modeling, processing and interpreting data taken with Resistivity, Resistivity/IP, frequency electromagnetics, transient electromagnetics (TEM), gravity, magnetics, seismic refraction and seismic reflection. Interpex was never able to identify a software niche in the area of borehole geophysics. Interpex has supplied several thousand software packages to users in academic institutions, government agencies, consultants and major mining and oil companies all over the globe.
Charles received the Alexander von Humboldt Award in 1987 for his work in TEM, and spent approximately 8 months working in Cologne, Germany as a result of this award.
Charles also received the Harold Mooney Award from the Society of Exploration Geophysicists in 2001 for his technical excellence and innovation leading to the advancement of Near-Surface Geophysics
Charles prides himself on algorithm and software development, in particular accuracy and speed with a usable interface and report-ready output.
He has been part of the receiving team of the Cecil H. Green Enterprise Award for KMS Technologies at the SEG meeting in Las Vegas 2012.
Dr. Kurt Strack
Kurt Strack is President of KMS Technologies- KJT Enterprises Inc. specializing land, marine and borehole electromagnetics with emphasis on land array systems and novel marine seismic/EM systems.. Kurt also serves as Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston (Electrical Engineering and in the Geoscience Department), where he teaches borehole geophysics, well logging and electrical geophysics. He also serves sometimes as Adjunct Prof. at Mahidol University Bangkok. Before starting KJT Enterprises, Kurt served as Chief Scientist for Baker Atlas in Houston. There he supported Logging Tool Development and Interpretation through modelling yielding numerous new logging tools. Prior to that Kurt pioneered LOTEM (Surface transient electromagnetics for hydrocarbon exploration) development and several advanced borehole research ideas in Germany, Australia and the USA. Kurt received a Ph.D. from the University of Cologne, Germany and a M.Sc. from Colorado School of Mines. He worked over the past 30 years as a geophysical consultant and as university researcher and teacher as R & D manager in the geothermal and oil industry. His main interest is integrating geophysics with other disciplines, technology transfer and project development. Kurt has taught courses and mentored many students and professionals at many universities and companies in the international oil industry.
Kurt has published over 100 publications, 1 textbook and authors/co-authors over 10 patents. He also received a Fulbright scholarship and numerous international grants/awards throughout his career. His main interest is integrated geophysics, inversion, and technology transfer and project development. He is a member of SPWLA, AAPG, ASEG, DGG, BDG, SPE, SEG and EAGE. He was 1998-1999 SPE distinguished lecturer on Through Casing Resistivity. Apart from chairing many workshops at International Conventions he was co-chairman of 3 SEG Summer research workshops on: Integration of Seismic Data with Well Logs (1995), NMR Imaging of Reservoir Attributes (1998), Effective Technology Transfer of Model-based Geo-Inversion Techniques (1999), and Geopressure (2002) . He was also co-chairman of the SPWLA topical conference on Borehole Anisotropy (April 2000) and Guest Editor of the special issues of Petrophysics on Borehole Anisotropy. Kurt has taught courses and mentored many students and professionals at many universities and many companies in the international oil industry.
Kurt received the Distinguished Technical Achievement Award (2003) from the SPWLA for his contribution to innovative logging tool technology. The SEG granted him the Reginald Fessenden Award for his instrumental role in the development of through casing resistivity and 3D induction. The Russian Academy of Science elected him a Foreign Member and gave him the Kapitsa Gold Medal of Honor in recognition for his innovative contribution to borehole geophysics and pioneering work to surface geophysics.
Kurt is Texas licensed geoscientist, # 1776.
He has been part of the receiving team of the Cecil H. Green Enterprise Award for KMS Technologies at the SEG meeting in Las Vegas 2012.
Short resumee Publications Extended Information