J. Carlos Santamarina

J. Carlos Santamarina is a professor of Energy Resources and Petroleum Engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Associate Director of the Ali I. Al-Naimi Petroleum Engineering Research Center (ANPERC).

Santamarina was born in Cordoba, Argentina, studied civil engineering at the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba (degree in Civil Engineering, 1982), the University of Maryland (master's degree in 1984) and Purdue University (doctorate in 1987).

He was a member of the faculty at NYU Polytechnic University (1987–1991), University of Waterloo (1992–1995), and Georgia Tech (1996–2015) before he joined KAUST in March 2015 where he leads the Energy GeoEngineering Laboratory, EGEL.

Santamarina’s research explores the scientific foundations of soils and fractured rocks and subsurface processes using particle-level and pore-scale experiments, combined with numerical methods and high-resolution process monitoring systems. The research focusses on energy geotechnology with contributions to resource recovery (petroleum, gas, methane hydrates), energy geo-storage, efficiency and conservation, and the geological storage of energy waste (carbon geological storage, fly ash and nuclear waste). Santamarina’s research results are summarized in two books and more than 300 publications. Former team members are faculty members at more than thirty universities, researchers at national laboratories or practicing engineers at leading organizations worldwide.  His research hobbies include engineering creativity (TED talk) and bio-mediated/bio-inspired geoengineering.

A frequent keynote lecturer at international civil and geotechnical conferences, he delivered the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE 50th Terzaghi Lecture on Energy Geotechnology in 2014. Other awards include the KGS Award from the Korean Geotechnical Society (2017), the International Hogentogler Award from the ATSM (2005 and 2016) and the BGA Touring Lecturer from the British Geotechnical Association (2012). He was awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa at the U. Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina in 2015 and is a member of both the science and engineering Argentinean National Academies. Santamarina received the 2019 Tarek Al-Qasabi Award for Excellence in Civil Engineering in Saudi Arabia together with Junghee Park.

• Soils and Waves. JC Santamarina, A Klein, MA Fam. Wiley, 508 pages. 2001. ISBN 978-0-471-49058-6. Link:
• Discrete Signals and Inverse Problems. JC Santamarina and D Fratta. Wiley, 364 pages. 2005. ISBN 978-0-470-02187-3. Link: