Stephanie Suarez graduated in 2012 as a member of the IPAA/PESA Petroleum Academy at Milby and this past May she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in General Geology from the Jackson School of Geosciences at UT Austin. Stephanie’s externship was at Valerus in 2011.

Her research at UT used U-Pb radiometric dating of zircon grains found in volcanic ashes deposited during the Ordovician period to determine when ancient volcanic eruptions occurred. Determining a precise and accurate age of these events is important information for a multitude of other geoscientists. Stephanie has presented her research at two conferences, the Geological Society of America Annual meeting in Denver, Colorado and the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, California. Stephanie has also participated in a Research for Undergraduate Experience funded by the National Science Foundation that allowed her to conduct mineralogy research internationally in an active mine in Baja California Sur, Mexico.

Stephanie plans to obtain her PhD in Geology, an ambitious goal as she is the first in her family to attend college.

The IPAA/PESA Energy Education Center could not be more proud of Stephanie and her achievements.

We are all very excited to see just how far she will go in the future and wish her well as she starts her masters degree in geology at the University of Houston.