Jun Yao
Dr. Jun Yao is a professor at the School of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China).
He has made outstanding contributions to the advancement of the science and the technology of porous media as well as to the academic exchanges in the field. Prof.Yao has conducted systematic research on multiphase flow in oil and gas reservoirs from the perspectives of multiple scales, such as nanoscale, microscale, core scale, macroscopic Darcy scale, and supermacroscopic scale in large fractures and vugs, as well as the coupling of reservoir multiphase flow field with multiple fields such as stress, chemical, and thermal fields, and has developed numerical simulation methodologies and software for reservoirs which have been widely applied in oilfields in China.
Beyond his academic and scientific achievements, Prof. Yao’s commitment to service and outreach is commendable. He led the Research Center of Multi-Phase Flow in Porous Media and hosted six consecutive international workshops on digital cores. He is also the leader of the China Flow Mechanics Committee and has organized five flow mechanics conferences in China. Prof. Jun Yao established the China InterPore Chapter in 2017 and served as its Chairman for six years.
Thanks to Prof. Yao’s hard work and dedication over the years, InterPore has been widely promoted in China with ever increasing impact.
Steffen Berg
Steffen Berg holds a MSc degree in materials science from the Saarland University, Germany. After a PostDoc at Princeton University in the Microfluidics Research and Engineering Group, he joined Shell as a staff scientist in the Netherlands. He is also a visiting reader at Imperial College London.
Steffen joined InterPore in 2011. That same year, he was involved in the creation of the Netherlands National Chapter, which was officially formed in 2012 and the first InterPore national chapter.
He successfully campaigned for making Shell an institutional member of InterPore. Through Steffen’s efforts, Shell has remained an active member and has supported InterPore conferences as a platinum sponsor.
In 2014, under Steffen’s leadership, the NL chapter joined forces with researchers from Belgium and Luxembourg and the BeNeLux chapter was formed. Steffen remained chair of Benelux chapter until 2017, and since then has remained a member of the Steering Committee.
In 2017, Steffen was directly involved in the creation of the InterPore Foundation, of which he is currently the Chair.
The time and effort invested by Steffen in InterPore have been enormous and his dedication has been unparalleled.
Azita Ahmadi-Senichault
Professor Azita Ahmadi-Senichault has been awarded InterPore Meritorious Service Medal. The InterPore Meritorious Service Medal recognizes individuals for exceptional, prolonged, impactful, and meaningful services to the Society.
Azita Ahmadi-Senichault is a University Professor at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers, Bordeaux, France. She has been involved in the establishment and development of InterPore from the beginning. She actively participated in the founding meeting of InterPore held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, on 09 April 2008, and has played a crucial role in shaping the InterPore Society since then. Together with Dr. Didier Lasseux, she organized the third InterPore Annual Meeting in 2011 in Bordeaux. That was a very successful meeting with around 200 participants and, for the first time, we had parallel sessions. She has been co-organizing and chairing many sessions during InterPore Conferences. Most importantly, she agreed to be the treasurer of InterPore in 2011. This has been a very demanding (both time and attention) task that she has carried out in an exemplary fashion. As the treasurer, she became a member of InterPore Executive Committee and the Council in 2011. This has been additional burden on her busy schedule. In 2017, when InterPore Foundation was established, she agreed to be the treasurer of Foundation too, and thus she has been a member of Board of Directors of the Foundation.
It is clear that the time and efforts invested by Prof. Ahmadi in InterPore have been enormous and her dedication has been unparalleled. For her continual service and commitment to the advancement of the InterPore Society, Prof. Ahmadi is a most worthy recipient of the InterPore Meritorious Service Medal.
Oleg Iliev
InterPore Executive Committee has selected Professor Oleg Iliev as the first recipient of InterPore Meritorious Service Medal.
Professor Iliev has been involved in the establishment and development of InterPore from day one. He was present at the founding meeting of InterPore held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, on 09 April 2008 and was subsequently elected by the members as the first InterPore president. He was a member of the Executive Committee for six years and contributed to many initiatives in InterPore’s development.
Prof. Iliev volunteered to organize the first InterPore annual meeting in March 2009 at ITWM Fraunhofer Institute, Kaiserslautern, Germany. This was a milestone event for InterPore. Since then, he has been involved in the organization of every InterPore meeting since 2012. He acted as the chair of the Program Committee of four annual meetings: InterPore2013, InterPore2014, InterPore2015, and InterPore2016; since 2015 he has been the chair of the Events Committee, which is in charge of finding new sites for InterPore meetings and all of the logistics for those meetings; and when the InterPore meeting went online, he took over the role of Organizing Committee chair and led the efforts for the successful organization of InterPore2020 and now chairs the Organizing Committee of InterPore2021.
As Prof. Iliev has been active in the organization of short courses through his role as Event Committee chair, he has agreed to serve as the interim director of the recently formed InterPore Academy of Porous Media. Prof. Iliev has also been instrumental in arranging for a number of organizations to become institutional members of InterPore. It is clear that the time and efforts that Prof. Iliev has invested in InterPore and his dedication have been unparalleled. For his continual service and commitment to the advancement of the InterPore Society, Prof. Iliev is a most worthy inaugural recipient of the InterPore Meritorious Service Medal.