Paul La Pointe Email and Phone Number

Dr. La Pointe has more than 40 year’s international experience as a technical expert and project manager for exploration and development projects related to the characterization and modeling of fractured reservoirs, the optimized development & geological storage of oil & gas, nuclear waste and CO2. In 1999, Dr. La Pointe developed SPE’s International Technology Update course on Fracture Network Analysis and Geologic Modeling, presented in North America, South America, Iran, Europe and Asia, and has co-taught Oil & Gas Consultants International’s course on fractured reservoir engineering. He was the Keynote Speaker for the 1998 SEPM Research Conference on Fluid Flow in Carbonates. Dr. La Pointe has taught Golder Associates’ Fractured Rock Modeling & Flow Simulation workshop worldwide, and co-taught a graduate level course in Fractured Rock Hydrogeology at the University of Washington. Dr. La Pointe served as the Fracture Flow/Geostatistics Expert for the Drift Seepage Peer Review panel commissioned by the USDOE, and has previously served on Expert and Peer Review panels for licensing of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant site in New Mexico. Dr. La Pointe was selected as the fracture flow/drift seepage Technical Expert in the Performance-based Technical Audit Team reviewing fracture-flow modeling reports for licensing of the proposed Yucca Mountain high level nuclear waste facility. He served three terms as a member of AAPG’s Committee on Resource Evaluation, and was a member of an international panel of experts to advise the USGS in methodology for its 1995 National Oil & Gas Assessment. Dr. La Pointe has authored numerous papers, monographs and books on fractured rock characterization, fracture flow and the statistical characterization and modeling of complex geological systems, as well as AAPG's Memoir 96 on Uncertainty Analysis and Reservoir Modeling. He served as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the American Rock Mechanics Association from 2004-2009. He was elected a Fellow of the AAPG in 2013, and has received the Distinguished Engineering Achievement Award by vote of the faculty Senate of the University of Wisconsin in 2013, and the President's Award from the American Rock Mechanics Association in 2017. In addition to being a Senior Vice-President in WSP since its merger with Golder Associates, Dr. La Pointe was designated as a Technical Fellow, WSP's highest technical designation, in 2022. Specialties: Fractured Reservoir Characterization & Engineering; stochastic modeling of earth systems; expert witness testimony