Alexandria, VA – Dr. Sven Treitel has been named the 2012 recipient of the Marcus Milling Legendary Geoscientist Medal. David Monk, President Elect of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), will accept this prestigious award on behalf of Dr. Treitel as part of the awards ceremony at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Meeting in Long Beach, California on April 22.
The Marcus Milling Medal is awarded to senior geoscientists who have contributed consistent high-quality scientific achievements and service to the Earth sciences with lasting, historic value.
A global pioneer in his field for more than four decades, Dr. Treitel has been an integral component in advancing the field of geophysics. Born in Freiburg, Germany in 1929, Treitel received his Bachelors degree in Geophysics in 1953 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and went on to complete both his Masters and his Doctorate also in Geophysics from MIT.
During his extensive career, Dr. Treitel helped to establish the fundamental principles of modern digital seismic data processing used in every seismic survey taken today. A longtime collaboration with his friend and fellow graduate student Enders A. Robinson allowed both to champion the practice of forward modeling and inversion of reflection seismic data, establishing the importance of this process in understanding seismic data and seismic survey design. Treitel has not only been a leader in industry, but has also inspired innumerable generations of colleagues with his contributions, both technically and personally. He is currently the president of TriDekon Inc., a consultancy in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The American Geosciences Institute recognizes Dr. Treitel with this award for his intellectual leadership in exploration geophysics, for the impacts his contributions have made to the discovery of some of the world's hydrocarbon reservoirs in the past fifty years, and for his excellence in mentoring countless geophysicists while helping the journal Geophysics achieve worldwide preeminence as one of its former Editors-in-Chief.
The American Geosciences Institute is a nonprofit federation of 50 geoscientific and professional associations that represents more than 250,000 geologists, geophysicists and other earth scientists. Founded in 1948, AGI provides information services to geoscientists, serves as a voice of shared interests in the profession, plays a major role in strengthening geoscience education, and strives to increase public awareness of the vital role the geosciences play in society's use of resources, resiliency to natural hazards, and interaction with the environment.