Maria-Aikaterini Nikolinakou

Maria-Aikaterini  Nikolinakou
Research Professor, Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences

Email: mariakat@austin.utexas.edu
Work: +1 512 471 0484, +1 512 475 9548
Office: ROC , BEG 3.102M
Mailcode: E0620

Areas of Expertise

Maria-Katerina Nikolinakou is currently a Research Scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on understanding stress and pore pressure in complex geologic systems, including salt systems and accretionary prisms. She studies the behavior of geologic materials under high stress levels and complex stress paths. She develops applied workflows for pressure prediction in exploration settings. Maria is a Civil/Geotechnical Engineer. She received her Science Doctorate on Theoretical Soil Mechanics from MIT in 2008. She holds a M.Sc. in Geotechnical Engineering from MIT and a Civil Engineering degree from NTUA, Greece. Before joining the Jackson School, she worked for Shell Exploration and Production on Reservoir Geomechanics. Areas of Expertise: - Geotechnical Engineering - Constitutive modeling - Coupled stress-pore pressure prediction - Hydromechanics of subduction zones - Dipping structures - Borehole stability - Poromechanical modeling of basin sediments - Transient pore pressure dissipation - Salt Tectonics - Numerical modeling: Abaqus, ELFEN


Current Research Programs & Projects

UT GeoFluids Consortium

AGL consortium

Pore pressure prediction coupling seismic velocities with geomechanical modeling

Impact of upper-plate splay faults on accreting-sediment stress state and on megathrust strength and fluid budgets


2015 Tinker Family BEG Publication Award - BEG (2015)

First class of Future Leaders - American Rock Mechanics Association (2012)

Treasurer, American Rock Mechanics Association (2017 - Present)

Board Member, American Rock Mechanics Association (2015 - Present)

President, MIT Club of Austin and San Antonio (2014 - 2017)

Member, MIT Educational Council of Central Texas, (2013 - Present)

Organizer, Friday Seminar Series, BEG (2013 - 2014)

Member, Organizing Committee, ARMA Rock Mechanics and Geomechanics Symposium, San Francisco, June 2013 (2012 - 2013)

Postdocs

Mahdi Heidari moghadam
Mahdi Heidari Moghadam is a Research Associate at the Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin (UT). He works for the AGL and GeoFluids consortia. Mahdi is a Civil/Geotechnical Engineer. He received his PhD on Tunneling in Difficult Ground Conditions from UT in 2013. He holds a M.Sc. in Structural Engineering from SUT,...


Graduate Students

Jean Joseph van der Linden d'Hooghvorst Ro, Ph.D. (Co-supervisor)

Baiyuan Gao, Ph.D., 2018 (Committee Member)
Jackson School of Geosciences

Andrea Nolting, Ph.D., 2017 (Committee Member)
Jackson School of Geosciences

Derek Sawyer, Ph.D., 2010 (Committee Member)
Jackson School of Geosciences


Stress and Pressure in Mudrocks Bounding Salt Systems, Invited early career keynote, 51st ARMA Rock Mechanics Geomechanics Symposium, San Francisco, CA, San Francisco, CA (2017)

Pore pressure in evolving salt systems, Operators Pore-Pressure Forum, Houston, TX (2017)

Stress, deformation, and pressure prediction near salt, Society of Underwater Technology, Houston, TX (2017)

Coupling flow and deformation in evolving salt basins, Invited talk, AGU Fall meeting, San Francisco, CA (2016)

Modeling of Shales in Salt-Hydrocarbon systems, Junior Keynote, Shale Symposium, International Society of Rock Mechanics Congress, Montreal, Canada (2015)

Modeling stress evolution around a rising salt dome, Invited, Houston Geomechanics Series, Houston, TX (2014)

Impact of salt diapir evolution on stress and pressure, SPE/AAPG/SEG Pore Pressure Workshop, San Antonio, TX (2014)

Geomechanical Modeling around a rising salt diapir, Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, MIT, Cambridge, MA (2014)

Geomechanical modeling of stresses and pore pressures in mudstones adjacent to salt bodies, Invited talk, 3rd Inernational. Geoqus Conference, Potsdam, Germany (2012)