Professor Michael Celia is the Theodora Shelton Pitney Professor of Environmental Studies at Princeton University. He is also a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmenta l Engineering, where he served as Department Chair from 2005 to 2011.

 

Professor Celia's areas of research include groundwater hydrology, multi-phase flow in porous media, numerical modeling, and subsurface energy systems with a focus on geological sequestration of carbon dioxide and shale-gas systems. Ongoing projects include development of new simulation tools to model CO2 injection, migration, and possible leakage associated with carbon capture and geological sequestration (CCS); studies of multi-phase flow and transport in porous media with a focus on multi-scale models, including pore-scale models; modeling of shale-gas systems with a focus on possible CO2 injection into depleted shale-gas reservoirs as well as the fate of fracking fluids; and measurements of methane leakage to the atmosphere along old oil and gas wells and other hydrocarbon infrastructure.

 

The CCS work is part of a large industry-funded multi-disciplinary effort at Princeton known as the Carbon Mitigation Initiative. Professor Celia served for 10 years as editor of the journal Advances in Water Resources. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the recipient of the 2005 AGU Hydrologic Sciences Award. He was the 2008 Darcy Lecturer for the National Ground Water Association, the 2010 Pioneers in Groundwater lecturer for the American Society of Civil Engineers, received the 2012 Hydrology Days Award, and is the recipient of the 2014 Honorary Lifetime Membership Award from the International Society for Porous Media (Interpore). In 2016 Professor Celia was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering He has also received several teaching awards, the most recent being the Distinguished Teaching Award from the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton, awarded June 2017