Kurt Marfurt is a research professor of geophysics at the University of Oklahoma, where he mentors students and conducts research to aid seismic interpretation. Marfurt holds a master’s degree and doctorate in applied geophysics from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in physics and French from Hamilton College.

Marfurt‘s experience includes 23 years as an academician, first at Columbia University, then later at the University of Houston and the University of Oklahoma (OU). His career also includes 18 years in technology development at Amoco’s Tulsa Research Center working on a wide range of topics including seismic modeling, seismic imaging, VSP analysis, signal analysis, magnetotellurics, basin analysis, seismic stratigraphy and seismic attributes. At OU, Marfurt leads the Attribute-Assisted Seismic Processing and Interpretation (AASPI) consortium with the goal of developing and calibrating new seismic attributes to aid in seismic processing, seismic interpretation and data integration using both interactive and machine learning tools.

With colleagues, he has received several best paper and best presentation awards on seismic modeling, coherence, curvature, principal component analysis and brittleness estimation. He is an honorary member of the SEG and in 2019 received the AAPG Robert R. Berg outstanding research award. Marfurt served as the 2006 EAGE/SEG DISC (Distinguished Instructor Short Course) and as the 2018 SEG DISC instructor and has taught continuing education short courses for the SEG and AAPG since 2003. From 1984-2013, he served as either an associate or assistant editor for Geophysics. In 2013 he joined the editorial board of the SEG/AAPG journal Interpretation where he served as the editor-in-chief (2016-18), and now serves as deputy editor-in-chief (2019-21). He also currently serves as director at large for the SEG (2020-22).