SMI News - CCSG Appoints New Director

Following an extensive international recruitment process, a new Director for the Centre for Coal Seam Gas has been appointed.

Joining SMI is Professor Andrew (Alf) Garnett. Alf joins SMI-CCSG from UQ's Energy Initiative, where he was the Director of the Carbon Capture and Storage Program. Prior to this appointment, Alf was the CEO and Project Director at ZeroGen Pty Ltd and has an extensive technical career in exploration and carbon capture positions with Shell International. Alf will maintain involvement in the Carbon Capture and Storage Program part time whilst leading the CCSG. 

The CCSG is already benefitting from Alf's experience and industry knowledge. Alf has spent a considerable amount of time engaging with industry people and researchers across UQ Schools and Centres, which is important for what has emerged as one of UQ's most internally connected collaborative initiatives. The CCSG has projects involving the schools of Chemical Engineering (Chem Eng), Agriculture and Food Sciences (AFS), Geography, Planning and Environmental Management (GPEM), Social Science (SS), Business, Earth Sciences and Population Health and SMI-CWiMI, SMI-MISHC, SMI-CMLR and SMI-CSRM. 
In March, Alf convened his first Strategic Advisory Board meeting which kicked off with presentations and posters from each of the research projects and those putting together a series of position papers. The SAB was a vigorous and progressive meeting with Alf putting forward a strong plan for getting more traction with project delivery and setting the scene for an integrated research and modelling capability for UQ. 
He has also overseen the commencement of the new Masters in Petroleum Engineering which is a joint venture with Heriot Watt University and is run by the School of Chemical Engineering in collaboration with Earth Sciences.