Ian D. Gates

Ian D. Gates is a Professor and Head of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering in the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary.

Professor Gates worked for seven years in industry prior to joining the university and since joining he has been a consultant for many small and large energy companies both in Canada and internationally. His primary research interests are in: thermal and thermal-solvent methods (SAGD, CSS, ES-SAGD, and SA-CSS) and optimization of these technologies for in situ heavy oil and bitumen recovery, energetics and efficiency, emissions, and water use; well-wormhole models for cold production with sand and recovery from thin heavy oil reservoirs; imaging reservoirs by using white noise reflection processes; application of smartwell technologies for adaptive production of heavy oil fields; support vector machine learning for reservoir characterization; in-reservoir reaction engineering (in situ combustion and in situ gasification of oil sands, H2S generation in SAGD and CSS); biofilm development in porous media; and biotechnology for energy recovery from petroleum reservoirs.

Professor Gates has co-founded several spin-off companies from the University of Calgary including Gushor Inc., Profero Inc., as well as two consulting firms. He has won eight teaching awards including a Killam Innovation in Teaching Award, and six research, innovation, and commercialization awards including an ASTech Award for Gushor Inc. Gushor Inc. was sold to Schlumberger in June 2013.

Professor Gates holds a B.Sc. from the University of Calgary, an M.Sc. from the University of British Columbia, and a PhD from the University of Minnesota, all in chemical engineering. He is a registered professional engineer in Alberta.

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