Stuart gained his BSc in Geology in 1972 from the University of London, followed by an MSc (1975) and PhD (1978) at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He joined Texaco as an exploration geologist in 1976, completing his PhD remotely. A company transfer to Aramco in Saudi Arabia followed in 1978, where he worked on both Mesozoic and the then new Palaeozoic plays. Stuart returned to Canada to work for Murphy Oil in 1980, responsible for exploration in Alberta and British Columbia. The lure of international work led to him taking a job with Occidental in California in 1981, becoming Chief Geologist for the Middle and Far East in 1982. In 1985 Stuart transferred to Occidental’s Aberdeen office and worked on the Producing Fields and Exploration of the UKCS. Elf bought Occidental’s UK assets in 1991 and Stuart worked in several management roles in Exploration and Development, before transferring to the Paris Headquarters in 1998 to work on International Prospect Evaluation. In 2000 he moved back to Aberdeen following the Total takeover of Elf to be responsible for Exploration and Development around the operated North Sea fields. Stuart took early retirement from Total in 2004 and worked for the following three years in consulting on a variety of international projects, prior to joining Circle Oil as VP Geology in 2008. Stuart was involved in the discovery and development of 13 gas fields in Morocco and two oil fields in Egypt, as well as the evaluation of over 200 exploration and field redevelopment opportunities. Stuart has been a “hands on geologist” throughout his career and taught on the Masters course in Hydrocarbon Exploration in Aberdeen for four years (2003-2007) and was appointed Visiting Geoscientist of the AAPG and was an Honorary Professor at Heriot Watt from 2014.-2022 On retirement from Circle Oil in June 2015, Stuart set up Morningside Petroleum Geology Consulting and recent work has included exploration block bid evaluations in the Middle East and acreage evaluation in North Africa.