Young Seo Kim
 | |
| Latest company | Saudi Aramco |
|---|---|
| PhD | Geophysics |
| PhD university | Seoul National University |
SEG Virgil Kauffman Gold Medal 2024
Young Seo Kim is awarded the Virgil Kauffman Gold Medal for his recent achievements in the development of traveltime-based full-waveform inversion. This innovation has provided reliable results, particularly in onshore complex shallow geologic structures. Kim’s close collaboration with Saudi Aramco’s exploration department has made a great impact in obtaining high-resolution velocity models and subsequent images in arid environments, thereby identifying near-surface hazards and mitigating drilling risks. Kim has showcased his work at various international conferences and workshops and authored or coauthored many papers in numerous peer-reviewed geophysical journals. His work has resulted in eight granted patents.
Biography Citation for the Virgil Kauffman Gold Medal
by Constantine Tsingas and Changsoo Shin
It is with great pleasure and honor that we write this citation for a successful and passionate geophysicist. A number of characteristics identify Young Seo Kim. He is energetic, technically skillful, efficient, and meticulous at his work. He has 17 years of experience, and during these years he has demonstrated a consistent work ethic, always eager to undertake new research projects and able to complete tasks assigned. His research and software development are always innovative, and the proposed solutions add significant value to our current research portfolio and exploration business objectives.
From the beginning of his career at Seoul National University’s Department of Energy Resources Engineering, he emerged as an exceptional student with a profound grasp of mathematics and outstanding programming skills, including expertise in CUDA, Fortran, and C++. He demonstrated his exceptional capabilities by successfully modifying a 3D time-domain prestack reverse time migration code. This modification, which he seamlessly translated into a time-domain full-waveform inversion (FWI) technology, significantly contributed to the lab’s research endeavors. Young Seo’s expertise extended to develop a 2D frequency-domain FWI and migration codes with source estimation, which he effectively applied to existing 3D time-domain FWI and migration codes.
Upon joining the research center at Saudi Aramco as a senior research scientist, Young Seo continued to excel in wave-equation-based model building and depth migration. Over the past decade, he has developed a novel vector-based least-squares reverse time migration technology incorporating a similarity attribute. Moreover, he has evolved into a leading geophysicist in FWI globally. His remarkable track record includes the successful application of FWI to various 3D land and marine field data sets.
Young Seo’s expertise extends beyond his role at Saudi Aramco, where he dedicated invaluable time to the development of 3D FWI codes for real land and marine data. His significant contribution includes the creation of "wavefield traveltime inversion," a widely used tool for depth model solutions within the organization. This program has played a pivotal role in shallow model building for long-wavelength static corrections, demonstrating significant impact on practical applications. This innovative technology has provided reliable results, particularly for land data sets acquired in complex surface and shallow geologic features, such as sand dunes, karsts, and sinkholes. His additional work on understanding the influence of seismic scattering and diffraction signals led to the development of novel imaging software aiming for the mapping and characterization of the natural fracture network. Young Seo has consistently showcased his work at various international conferences and workshops, resulting in eight granted patents and numerous papers published in peer-reviewed geophysical journals. Beyond his individual accomplishments, he is actively supporting and mentoring young researchers and collaborating with colleagues.
In light of Young Seo’s exceptional contributions to the oil and gas industry, the Virgil Kauffman Gold Medal is a testament to his outstanding achievements and highlights his significant impact on industrial applications.