Jim Jennings
Jim Jennings is a Principal Domain Expert for Production Geology in Shell Global Solutions US Inc. based in Houston Texas. Jim holds a BS degree from the University of Wyoming (1978), and MS and PhD degrees from Texas A&M University (1982 and 1983), all in petroleum engineering. Before joining Shell in 2007 he had 23 years of previous experience at The University of Texas at Austin, Arco, and BP primarily in research on characterization, geostatistics, modeling, and scaleup for carbonate reservoirs. After joining Shell Jim provided consulting on modeling carbonate reservoirs in the North America, offshore Brazil, the Middle East, and Malaysia. In 2014 he moved to a technology development group and conducted research in assisted history matching, uncertainty estimation, and well-location optimization. In 2019 he moved to a software development group where he provides expert support in the development and deployment of Shell's subsurface modeling software system.
Jim was a distinguished lecturer for the AAPG in 2008-2009 and has authored or co-authored over 40 journal and conference proceeding papers. He was chairman for the SPE reprint volume Advances in Reservoir Characterization and is a technical editor for SPE Reservoir Evaluation and Engineering and the Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering.
When did you first hear about Madagascar?[edit]
I first heard about Madagascar when I was working at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin around 2005 or so. I heard about Madagascar from Sergey Fomel himself when it was still called RSF and we were both working in a forward seismic modeling research initiative at the BEG.
What was the most difficult part in learning Madagascar?[edit]
The hardest part for me was understanding that a SConstruct file does not actually build anything, it just sets up the table of rules that Scons uses to build all the targets afterwards.
From your contributions to Madagascar, which one is your favorite?[edit]
The FFT-based random field simulator and the FFT-based variogram calculator are my favorites.
What advice would you give to those who wish to learn Madagascar or to contribute to it?[edit]
Spend as much time with Sergey as you can get. You will learn a lot.