Kurt Rudolph received a bachelor’s in geology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master’s in geology from the University of Texas.  He began his career as an exploration geologist with Unocal in 1978, until he joined Exxon Production Research in 1981.  He held a variety of positions at Exxon/ExxonMobil, including research geologist, chief interpreter in Kuala Lumpur, technical advisor for the Africa and Middle East Region, and Hydrocarbon Systems Resource manager. From 2002 until his retirement in 2015, he was chief geoscientist with ExxonMobil Exploration Company in Houston. Since then, Rudolph has been an adjunct professor at the University of Houston and Rice University.

His interests include seismic attributes/DHI analysis, risking and assessment, sequence stratigraphy, and tectonics and sedimentation. Current research includes the Cretaceous Western Interior, Paleozoic orogenic systems of North America and northern Europe, and integrating subsurface uncertainty into assessment and economic analysis.

He won Wallace Pratt Awards for the best AAPG Bulletin paper in 1994 and 2017, was an AAPG-SEG Distinguished Lecturer for 2001-02, was the AAPG Michel T. Halbouty Lecturer for 2007, and won best paper award for the Mountain Geologist (RMAG) in 2015.