b'CommentaryEducation mattersEducation matters Companies seek individuals with versatile skills rather than highly specialised education.Marina Pervukhina Associate Editor for Education research. As a senior academic, I take EMarina.Pervukhina@csiro.au pride in mentoring and directing junior colleagues, in addition to classroom teaching and supervision of research Finding an optimal balancedetection of hydrocarbons from seismicstudents. I am also heavily involved in between breadth and depthre\x1cection data. While working on thesefacilitating cooperation with industry in education topics, I met Sergey L. Lopatnikov, whothrough my role as the director of the inspired my interest in poroelasticity andCurtin Reservoir Geophysics Consortium. Dear readers, in this issue of Preview werock physics. This subject became myFor nineteen years, concurrently with my continue our series of interviews withlong-term obsession. My \x1erst steps inCurtin professorship, I also served as a leaders from industry, government,this area were focused on quanti\x1ecationgeophysics advisor to CSIRO. Together, and academia about education in Earthof dispersion and attenuation duewe have built one of the strongest rock Sciences in Australia. Today, our guest isto mesoscopic \x1cow in thinly-layeredphysics groups in the world.Boris Gurevich, John Curtin Distinguishedporoelastic systems. This research formedMP:In the current rapidly changing Professor at Curtin University. the basis of my PhD thesis (1988). minerals and energy resources In 1995, after several short visitinglandscape, what does the industry research appointments at a numberexpect from tertiary education? How of European universities, I joined thedo companies see their fresh blood? Geophysical Institute of Israel, whereBG:Its challenging to speak about I combined my continued interest inthe entire industry, but from what I poroelasticity with development andunderstand, the basic requirements application of new approaches to seismicare hands-on skills and the ability to imaging under the guidance of anothercontribute to projects from day one. mentor - Evgeny Landa. At the same time, companies seek In 2001, I was appointed Professor ofindividuals with versatile skills rather than Geophysics at Curtin University, wherehighly specialised education. Particularly my research expanded into a largein energy and mineral sectors, they value variety of rock physics topics, such asskills like a geophysicists understanding e\x1fective stress laws, stress dependencyof geology and vice versa, along with of rock properties and solid/\x1cuid layeredadaptability in a changing world.systems. At the same time, I continuedIncreasingly important are also soft to work on the topic of wave-inducedskills, which traditional education often \x1cuid \x1cow, studying such systems asneglects to provide. These skills are crucial patchy saturation; \x1cow between poresfor long-term success, alongside a mix of and fractures; squirt \x1cow; and heavyfundamental and practical abilities. oil rocks. I also started to collaborate more and more with my colleagues whoHowever, the emphasis on these are experts in seismic data processingattributes varies among companies. and analysis. This collaboration led toFor instance, smaller companies Professor Boris Gurevich a number of interesting studies, suchmay prioritise immediate hands-on as development of new algorithms forskills, while multinationals prefer to estimation of azimuthal anisotropy fromprovide comprehensive graduate MP:Please, tell the readers a little bitborehole seismic data and modellingtraining programmes. This dynamic about yourself. the seismic time-lapse response of CO 2 can sometimes be viewed as a failure injected into a reservoir rock. In recentof university education to fully prepare BG:Thank you, Marina, for theyears, this collaboration has expandedgraduates for industry roles. However, in opportunity to share my story andfurther and shifted the focus of mya rapidly changing and diverse industry, my views with fellow geophysicists.research to understanding and modellingit is impossible for universities to prepare Iobtained my BSc and MSc atof seismic wave amplitudes measured bygraduates to every possible job. Lomonosov Moscow State Universitydistributed acoustic sensors (DAS).in 1981 and started my career at theThe economics of higher education Moscow Institute of Geosystems. MyThroughout my career at Curtin, I heldpresent additional challenges. For early work included numerical analysis ofseveral managerial roles such as Headclasses to be economically viable they NMR signals and application of patternof the Geophysics Department, whichneed to be of a signi\x1ecant size, which recognition methods (a precursor toallowed me to better understand themotivates universities to o\x1fer courses modern neural networks!) to directbusiness side of higher education andthat have a broad appeal and are less 28 PREVIEWAPRIL 2024'