People
Principal Investigator
Jader R. Barbosa, Jr., Ph.D.
Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering, Louisiana State University
Prof. Barbosa joined the Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering at Louisiana State University in January 2025. He received his B.Sc. (1995) and M.Sc. (1997) in Mechanical Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London in 2001, working with the late Professor Geoffrey F. Hewitt on multiphase flow and heat transfer. From 2001 to 2024 he was at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil, where he led research at POLO — Research Laboratories for Emerging Technologies in Cooling and Thermophysics — and coordinated the INCT in Cooling and Thermophysics and the POLO/UFSC EMBRAPII unit.
He has published 182 peer-reviewed journal articles and 230 conference papers, holds thirteen patents and registered software tools, and has an h-index of 40 with more than 5,900 citations. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering (Springer) from 2019 to 2025 and is now Journal Development Editor at Applied Thermal Engineering. He is President of the Assembly of the World Conferences on Experimental Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics and a member of the Scientific Council of the International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer. His recognitions include the Petrobras Inventor Prize, the EUROTHERM Young Scientist Award, a CNPq Level 1A Research Productivity Fellowship, and inclusion in the Stanford/Elsevier World’s Top 2% Scientists career list in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Research Team
Younghyun Ko Undergraduate researcher · Accelerated Master’s program B.S. Petroleum Engineering, LSU, expected 2027 Repurposing oil wells for thermal energy storage Thermal analysis of power-to-heat-to-power systems using depleted wells as dispatchable heat stores.
Subhrajyoti Kundu Ph.D. student B.Tech Mechanical Engineering, Odisha University of Technology and Research, 2021 · System Engineer, Infosys Ltd., 2022–2023 · M.S. Mechanical Engineering (Thermal Science), LSU, 2026 Thermodynamics and mass transport of CO2 in drilling fluids High-pressure PVT experiments and numerical assessment of CO2 solubility, absorption kinetics and fluid stability in water-based and polymer-enhanced muds, coupled to heat- and mass-transfer models for CCS and drilling operations.
Rafael dos Santos Ph.D. student B.S. Petroleum Engineering, Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES), 2024 · M.S. Petroleum Engineering, LSU, 2026 Mapping and modeling legacy wells for energy storage applications Geospatial mapping of Louisiana’s legacy well inventory against candidate end uses, and numerical modeling of underground thermal energy storage, within the LSU Energy Institute project.
Visiting researchers
Allan de Bastos Falcão Visiting M.Sc. student · Federal University of Santa Catarina · September–October 2025 Exergo-economic optimization of CO2 transport Exergo-economic optimization of source-to-sink CO2 transport through decommissioned natural gas pipelines, coupling compression, intercooling, pipeline and injection models under a cost–efficiency Pareto framework. The work continues as a joint LSU–UFSC collaboration.
Collaborators and partners
The group collaborates with academic, industrial, and national laboratory partners in the United States, Brazil, and Europe.
Opportunities
We consider strong applicants for doctoral and postdoctoral positions on a continuing basis, particularly those with backgrounds in thermal-fluid sciences, geomechanics, thermodynamics, or applied numerical modeling. Prospective doctoral students should follow the application procedure at the Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering and may write to Prof. Barbosa with a CV, a transcript, and a short statement of research interest.