About the Author: Haytham El Atfy PD Dr. El Atfy is an associate professor at Mansoura University, Egypt, from which he has received a B.Sc. in geology and an M.Sc. in palynology. He obtained his Ph.D. in geosciences (palynology and organic geochemistry) from Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany, in 2014. Since 2019, he acts a research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Institute of Geosciences, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany.
His research interests span all aspects of palynology and its applications in hydrocarbon exploration, age dating, and paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic reconstructions, particularly of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic and, to a lesser extent, the Paleozoic. He has more recently become involved in organic geochemistry, mainly vitrinite reflectance and organic petrography and TOC and Rock-Eval pyrolysis.
Dr. El Atfy is a petroleum palynologist specializing in palynology and organic geochemistry with more than 15 years of academic and industrial experience covering both conventional and unconventional resources. His expertise covers many basins in the MENA region and outside, for example, the north Western Desert, Nile Delta, and Gulf of Suez basins in Egypt; Sirte Basin in Libya; Rumaila, Zubair, and Subba oil fields in Southern Iraq; Jordan; Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, North Sea, China, and Brazil. His scientific contribution has resulted in a number of more than 45 articles and book chapters that have been mostly published in international, peer-reviewed journals that have a good scientific reputation. In addition, he has also strong skills in laboratory work including palynology, palynofacies analyses, thermal maturation index, spore-pollen coloration index (SCI).
Beyond his research interests, he is a trainer in academic skills, such as academic writing, writing for funding, proposal writing, and quality assurance and accreditation since 2018. He is also a member of the Palynological Society (AASP), the Micropalaeontological Society (TMS), Arbeitskreis für Paläobotanik und Palynologie (APP), Paleontological Society of Egypt (PSE), and some other local geoscience societies. Throughout his career, Haytham is a recipient of many awards including the Bernd Rendel-Prize from the German Science Foundation (DFG), TMS-Alan Higgins Award for Applied Micropalaeontology, the Egyptian State Incentive Award, and the First-Class Excellence Concession that is provided by the Egyptian president and many others.
Bandar Ghassal Dr. Ghassal works at the EXPEC Advanced Research Centre, Saudi Aramco. He is a petroleum geochemist and supervisor of the Geochemistry Unit and has 17 years of industry and academic experience. He obtained his B.Sc. degree in geology from King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 2004 with a focus on economic geology. In 2010, he received his M.Sc. degree from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA. In 2017, he was awarded his Doctorate from the RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
Dr. Ghassal has one year of mining and mineral exploration experience where he studied various gold and base metal deposits in Saudi Arabia. However, the majority of his industry experience is in the petroleum sector. He worked on the geochemical assessment of super basins in Saudi Arabia and several North African ones. His research covers a wide range of topics, such as source rock and reservoir geochemistry, as well as oil and gas fingerprinting using biomarkers and isotopes. He also studies organic petrology, palynology, inorganic geochemistry, and petroleum engineering.