The Value of a Multi-Disciplinary Career: Meet Grant Cole

Grant Cole’s integrated geology, geophysics and project management experience helps maximize the value of data. What keeps him inspired is integrating the technical side of geoscience with the personal — such as the sense of achievement that comes with delivering high-quality outcomes for a complex client project, and the pride of working with the industry’s brightest minds toward a common goal. We caught up with Dr. Cole to hear how he and his team at Data Hub are achieving geoscience-driven data transformation for mutual success.
 

What was your professional background before CGG?

I earned my bachelor’s degree in geology and physical geography at Plymouth University in 2013. For my master’s, I studied integrated petroleum geoscience at the University of Aberdeen. I got a scholarship from Apache North Sea Ltd, where I undertook an in-company near-field exploration project as a geoscience intern.

In 2015, I started work as a support geoscientist at a software energy company, supporting clients on how to best use the company’s interactive petrophysics and correlation software to make their workflows more efficient. Around that time, the industry experienced a downturn spurred by a rapid drop in oil price, and I decided to further my geological skills with a Ph.D. I earned my doctorate at the University of Plymouth in 2019 and then joined CGG as a graduate geoscientist. What attracted me was the office location in North Wales, the fact I knew other people that worked there and that I’d be undertaking a wide range of geological work.

My first role at CGG was as part of our geology team, where I was able to apply my sedimentological and integrated disciplinary knowledge. I also had the opportunity to work with Data Hub, which gave me a good understanding of data science workflows early on. One of my first projects with Data Hub was helping with the data extraction and transformation for the GeoWells Mexico project for CGG’s Earth Data group.

I continued to keep in touch with the Data Hub team and was interested in the innovation and technological advancements it drove. So, when a role came up last year, I applied and was successful. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but it really resonated with me that geologists need good-quality, clean data, and that starts from the very beginning.
 

What does a day in the life of Data Hub look like?

There are a lot of moving components. From the subject-matter side, I have to be available to the team to give quick answers or perspectives on technical matters. Often, someone may be extracting a certain data type in the sedimentology discipline, and they need help understanding what that data means. Generally, there are a lot of interactions with my wider team.

On the project management side, I’m always in contact with each team member involved with projects that I manage to make sure we reach our milestones. This can involve a lot of client interactions to develop that relationship as well.

I still get involved with the technical work in terms of extraction and quality-control checks; the involvement of subject-matter experts in these stages is crucial.
 

What exciting projects have you been part of with Data Hub?

Everything is fast-moving in Data Hub. Colleagues are always innovating solutions, and we have a positive can-do attitude and culture. I like the fast pace because you see rewards quite quickly. In other roles, seeing rewards can take months or years due to the nature of the work.

A project that comes to mind is one we did for a project in Brazil. I helped with sedimentology, data extraction and core description from interpreting photographs and integrating this with other data. It was just one component of the whole project, but once integrated with other data and disciplines and visualized by our data engineers, some amazing stuff can be done. For me, seeing how your part contributed to the end result is extremely fulfilling.

Also, I’m currently enjoying managing another project with a supermajor. I like to be at the interface with clients and make sure they have confidence in our processes. As the relationship and communication grows, we both achieve more.
 

Where would you like to see yourself in five years?

If I had stayed with my previous team, I’m sure I would have progressed down a solely technical route. Now that I’m with Data Hub, I’d like to further my technical progression as well as leadership abilities. I’d like to continue to advance the analytics and interpretation aspects of our data integration while pushing positive forward-thinking — what we can do better, and what we can do next.
 

What do you like to do outside of work?

I love being outdoors! The largest component of my Ph.D. was geological fieldwork in Spain. I don’t have as many opportunities now to get out in the field, but living in North Wales, in such a beautiful country, offsets that.

My main hobby is snooker. I got into snooker from a young age and played to a semiprofessional level. I actually came to North Wales before moving here for work to play in a snooker tournament, but I gave myself a cut-off for that pathway. I still play now, weekly in the local league.  
 

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Find out more about our expert data transformation services and technology Watch Grant's webinar: 'Unlocking the value of subsurface image data through ML and image analysis'