John Kaldi is an Emeritus Professor of Petroleum Geology and Engineering at the Australian School of Petroleum and Energy Resources (ASPER), University of Adelaide, and holds the South Australia State Chair in Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS). He is also an Adjunct Professor at Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Indonesia, and a Visiting Professor at Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) in Malaysia. John received his Bachelor's and Master’s degrees in geology from Queens College, City University of New York, and a Ph.D. in Geology from Cambridge University in the UK. His career includes 18 years in the Petroleum Industry in both technical and managerial roles with Shell, Arco, and Vico. John served as Distinguished Lecturer for various professional organisations, including AAPG, SPE, the Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA), and the Petroleum Exploration Association of Australia (PESA). He has been the author and presenter of more than 150 journal articles and technical conference papers.
John Kaldi is a scientist and educator of wide international repute. He was born, and spent his early childhood, in Budapest, Hungary, then emigrated to Britain and the United States. John attended Queens College, City University of New York, studying for the Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Geology. He received a Ph.D from Cambridge University, England, in 1980. His dissertation topic was the Sedimentology of Permian Carbonates of Northeast England. From 1980 to 1982 Dr. Kaldi worked as a Research Geologist for the Saskatchewan Geological Survey in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, specializing in Mississippian Carbonate reservoirs. In 1982, he moved to Calgary to work for Shell Canada as a Senior Research Geologist, focusing on production geology in carbonates. Dr. Kaldi joined ARCO Oil and Gas Co. in Plano, Texas, in 1987 as a Senior Reservoir Geologist. Between 1991 and 1995, he was a Geological Specialist with ARCO, Indonesia, in Jakarta, working mainly on the evaluation of reservoirs, seals and pay in offshore northwest Java. In 1995, he became the Development Geologist responsible for ARCO Indonesia's 2 TCF Pagerungan gas field. In 1997 Dr. Kaldi joined VICO Indonesia as Chief Geologist. In early 1998, he accepted the position of Director, National Centre for Petroleum Geology and Geophysics in Adelaide.
Dr. Kaldi is a member and active participant in a number of professional organizations, including American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA) Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM), International Association of Sedimentologists (IAS), and Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia (PESA)
John Kaldi's specialties include carbonate sedimentology and diagenesis, seal evaluation, reservoir geology and multi-disciplinary studies, and he has more than 40 referenced publications on these topics. He was an organizer of the AAPG Hedberg Conference on Seals and Traps, has served as Book Review Editor for Journal of Sedimentary Geology, Associate Editor for Bull. Canadian Society of Petroleum Geology, and has been Technical Program Chairman for the Indonesian Petroleum Association. He has been a member of the AAPG Grants-In-Aid Committee, a member of AAPG's International Liaison and Development Geology Committees and is presently a member of the AAPG House of Delegates. His courses on "Evaluating Reservoirs, Seals and Pay" and "Multidisciplinary Teams" have been presented to AAPG, IPA, PESA and NZAPG audiences as well as to private major oil and gas companies, numerous times. He is Program Manager for the Australian Petroleum Cooperative Research Centre's Program on Seal Evaluation. Dr. Kaldi received AAPG's Special Commendation Award for Significant Contributions to Petroleum Geology in 1997. He was the PESA Distinguished Lecturer (1996) and was selected as AAPG’s Distinguished Lecturer for 2002-2003. His "mission" as AAPG Visiting Geoscientist is to visit universities around the Asia Pacific region and to inform and enthuse students about careers in the Petroleum Industry.