SEG selects new president-elect

TULSA, Oklahoma -- The Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) today announced results of its 2016–2017 board of directors election. Nancy House, who has been a member of the society for nearly 40 years, was selected by a vote of active SEG members to serve as president-elect for 2016–2017. Following her one-year term as president-elect, House will assume the office of SEG president following SEG’s 2017 Annual Meeting, scheduled for Sept. 24-27, 2017 in Houston. She will become the second woman to serve as SEG president since the society’s founding in 1930.

House, of Littleton, Colo., received a BS degree in geology/geophysics in 1976 from the University of Wyoming and a MA degree in geophysics in 1979 from Colorado School of Mines (CSM). She joined SEG while she was a student at CSM in 1977. Her professional career has focused on the application of leading-edge geophysical interpretation for multinational corporations as well as small independent oil companies.

House has served the society in a number of volunteer and leadership roles. In the 1990s, she became involved with SEG’s International Affairs Committee (the precursor to the current SEG Global Affairs Committee). She subsequently served on SEG’s Membership Committee, working on initiatives to enhance membership engagement globally. She also has served as general chair of the SEG Annual Meeting (2010), secretary-treasurer (2011–2012), chair of the SEG Women’s Network Committee (2012–2013), and chair of the SEG Finance Committee (2012–2014), and has continued as a member of the Finance Committee during the past two years.

House has a deep knowledge of SEG finances, which she will apply in helping the society to better serve its members and to strengthen its position as the leading professional organization for applied geophysics, despite the current petroleum-industry downturn.

“In the past, SEG received the majority of its funding from the hydrocarbon industry,” House wrote in her position statement in advance of the board of directors election. “Most of the membership has been and, despite the downturn, may continue to be employed in the petroleum industry, but we must adapt to the economic reality of a potentially long period of low oil prices. … SEG must optimize programs, focusing on those that support basic tenets of the society, while expanding the scope to include environmental, hazard-identification, near-surface engineering, and water-resource geophysics, along with other applications (of applied geophysics).”

Also elected to the 2016–2017 SEG board of directors were Madeline Lee as second V.P., M. Lee Bell as treasurer, and Paul Cunningham and Ruben Martinez as directors at large.

Completing the board of directors for 2016–2017 will be nine incumbents from the current Board: Bill Abriel, the current president-elect who will become president; Jie Zhang, the current second V.P. who will become first V.P.; John Bradford, the current SEG president who will become the past-president; Mauricio Sacchi, who will serve a second year as editor; Maurice Nessim, Xianhuai Zhu, Rocco Detomo Jr., and Vladimir Grechka, who will return as directors at large; and Lee Lawyer, who will return as chair of the SEG council. The new board will assume leadership of the society after the conclusion of SEG’s 2016 Annual Meeting, which takes place Oct. 16-21, in Dallas.