Mrinal Sen

Mrinal Sen is a Professor at The University of Texas at Austin, holding the Shell Companies Foundation Centennial Chair in Geophysics. He is affiliated with the Jackson School of Geosciences, specifically the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Institute for Geophysics. Sen is a pioneer in machine learning applications for seismic imaging and has developed methods combining physics-based models with computational techniques. He was named the SEG’s 2024-2025 Distinguished Instructor Short Course (DISC) lecturer for his course on physics and data-driven seismic analysis.

Education: PhD from University of Hawaii at Manoa, M.Sc. from IIT Dhanbad. His research focuses on seismic wave propagation, inversion, and uncertainty quantification, with emphasis on unconventional reservoirs and physics-assisted machine learning. He led the development of the Jackson School’s machine learning certificate program in geosciences.

Research Interests: Exploration geophysics, seismology, full waveform inversion (FWI), Bayesian methods, and high-performance computing. His work bridges cutting-edge computational techniques with traditional geophysical principles.

• Key Achievements: Virgil Kauffman Gold Medal (SEG, 2018), SEG Honorary Membership, Distinguished Educator Award (UT Austin).
• Recent Work: Hybrid quantum neural networks for seismic inversion, starting-model-independent FWI algorithms, and trans-dimensional Bayesian inversion.
• Global Outreach: DISC course presentations across 8+ locations including Houston, Norway, France, India, and virtual platforms.

Grants & Labs: Active in research funded by industry and academic partnerships, leading the Sen Research Group focused on seismic imaging and machine learning integration.