$ 150,000 MIT research grant for Saudi student

A Saudi student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Geospatial Data Center (GDC) has won a $ 150,000 grant for his research.
Zeid Alghareeb was praised for his research proposal entitled “Optimum Decision-Making in Reservoir Management Using Reduced-Order Models.”
Reservoir management is a vital concern for oil producers around the globe and even a slight increase in reservoir return rates can mean millions of additional barrels of oil and millions in associated revenue.
Alghareeb’s research focuses on broadening the application of oil reservoir simulation for decision-making in light of geological and financial uncertainties using fast physics-based, reduced order models.
According to information posted on the MIT website, the proposed research was endorsed by founding and sustaining members of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) including Saudi Aramco, BP, Shell, Schlumberger and Chevron.
Alghareeb, Saudi Aramco-sponsored student, was not immediately available for comment, but the news of his grant has become a hot topic of discussion among the large Saudi student community in the US.
“He has made all of us proud,” said Nasser Al-Mutawwa, a US-based Saudi research student.
“That is a massive grant, and only the best of the best get it.”