Riyad Ali-Adeeb is of Lebanese descent and grew up in the UAE and travelled through much of Europe and the Middle East at a young age which helped foster an inquisitive mind and a love for adventure. He immigrated to the United States in 1992 and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2007, the same year he joined Chevron out of graduate school. Riyad graduated from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Science in Geology and Environmental Earth Science and holds a M.S. in Geology from the from the University of Minnesota Duluth while researching the stratigraphy of the fluvio-lacustrine Morrison Formation, Utah. It was in Utah while an undergraduate where his passions for geology and the outdoors truly took off. Between his academic and professionals pursuits Riyad has experienced working in various geologic realms including fluvial and lacustrine environments, deepwater turbidites, shallow marine carbonates as well as metamorphic petrology. Furthermore his work has delved into very different scales from the hand-lens scale in describing whole g core to basin-scale seismic data interpretation. Riyad has been involved with AAPG since his undergraduate days where he served as the Secretary of the Executive Committee for the inaugural Student Chapter at the University of Utah, and was the lead for the Gulf Coast Section of the APPG Young Professionals Committee form 2010-2012. Riyad’s passions include rock climbing, skiing, white-water kayaking, scuba diving and photography. His favorite spots are ironic opposites, the cold and icy Prince William Sound, Alaska, and the dry, hot canyons of the San Rafael Swell, Utah.