Annual Report 2012: FY July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012
Technical Advisory Committee
The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) provides a global view of cutting-edge technology for inclusion in all technical programs, educational programs, and publications. The TAC supports the AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition (ACE) and the International Conference and Exhibition (ICE) technical program committees (TPCs) on developing conference technical programs.
To fulfill those roles, the committee must represent a broad range of technical expertise from representative industry and academic organizations. TAC is developing a broad geographic distribution of members who can interact closely with TPCs worldwide. During the 2011-2012 fiscal year, TAC added several new members, and Dan Schwartz and John Suter agreed to serve as Vice Chairs for TAC. TAC activities included:
2011 Milan ICE
- Philippe de Clarens served as TAC liaison. TAC volunteers helped review abstracts.
- TAC and GEvO committees met in Milan so that members of both committees could become familiar with what each committee does. Among the topics of discussion were the beliefs that executive panel discussions are and “the business of the business” could be critical components of ACE and ICE technical programs.
2012 Long Beach ACE
- TAC liaisons Dalton Lockman and Dan Schwartz recruited TAC volunteers to help review abstracts within specific technical themes.
2012 Singapore ICE
- Two young professional members, Rohit Mohanty and Sumit Bhardwaj, volunteered to be TAC liaisons for the Singapore meeting. Six TAC members volunteered to help review abstracts.
2012 IPTC Meeting
- Several TAC members volunteered to help with abstract reviews.
2013 Pittsburgh ACE
- Connie Jump has joined the TAC and will serve as our liaison for this meeting, taking on the role of AAPG Technical Program Vice Chair.
2013 Cartagena ICE
- Victor Vega has agreed to be TAC member and liaison for this conference.
Additional TAC activity
- A subcommittee examined procedures for abstract review, beginning with what constitutes a good abstract. Gretchen Gillis, Peter Hennings, John Suter, and Steve May considered making recommendations to improve the abstract review and selection process to build stronger technical programs. However, the project was discontinued due to lack of correlation between abstract scores and presentation scores.
- TAC continues to increase its membership to fill technical and geographical gaps.
- TAC is investigating the possibility of a presentation exchange with EAGE. Several “Best of Conference” presentations could be included in relevant technical sessions rather than a standalone session of unrelated presentations.
- TAC is encouraging more abstract submissions from technology providers and service companies.
- TAC is using the experiences of the Houston 2011 TPC to examine the “theme chair” format in more detail and suggest changes to AAPG staff if warranted.
- TAC plans to build a generic template of themes and sessions to serve as a starting point for local technical program committees.
- TAC discussed what they think TAC should be doing. The committee will take a closer look at technology content for all conferences and educational programs for which AAPG serves as a sponsoring organization.
Gretchen Gillis and Jon Schwalbach, Co-Chairs
Committee members: Samuel Olusegun Akande, Sumit Bhardwaj, Dave Lee Cantrell III, Timothy Robert Carr, Philippe de Clarens, Arthur Dean Donovan, Carmen Maria Fraticelli, Gretchen M. Gillis (co-chair), Michael Robert Gross, Frances J. Hein, Peter Hill Hennings, Connie J. Jump, Stephen Ernest Laubach, Dalton Fredric Lockman, Steven Robert May, Rohit Mohanty, Miguel I. Mora-Glukstad, William A. Morgan, Ronald Alan Nelson, Christopher Alan Presmyk, Jon R. Schwalbach Jr. (co-chair), Daniel Evan Schwartz, Stephen A. Sonnenberg, John Robert Suter, Victor H. Vega, and Pinar Oya Yilmaz