John P. Ziagos, PhD | Geophysics
Geothermal Scientist for Ziagos Consulting, Inc.
Dr. Ziagos is currently geothermal science consultant to the Makushin Geothermal Project in Unalaska, Alaska. Duties include overall project scientific support, power purchase agreement and resource development, and project management support. Previously, John was a reviewer for DOE’s Geothermal Technology Office (GTO) for program and SBIR technical proposals and projects as well as DOE’s ARPAe, and technical publication journal Geothermics. He has organized and presented materials at the first Geothermal Energy Workshop in the Republic of Georgia at the request of Ilia State University’s Geoscience’s Department in March 2014 with a follow-up summer program for three weeks in Aug-Sep of the same year.
Before retirement he worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) for 23 years in several high-responsibility positions including Science Advisor for GTO and Deputy Project Leader for Department of Defense’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Chief Scientist for GTO and Senior Science Advisor for Ground-Based Nuclear Detonation Detection Program in Washington D.C. While at LLNL John was Deputy Department Head for the Atmospheric, Earth, and Energy Department, responsible for achieving a vigorous energy and environment research portfolio through technical and business leadership of 200 scientists, engineers, technicians and administrative staff. Before that position John was the Superfund manager for 10 years at the LLNL’s main, Livermore Site and Site 300, a high-explosives test facility, successfully negotiating Record of Decisions with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In his 30-year energy, environment and earth sciences career he has managed both large and small teams of scientists and engineers and worked for the University of California, the U.S. Geological Society (USGS), the U.S. Department of Energy, successful start-up companies (FINDER now owned by Schlumberger), and major energy corporations (BP/SOHIO). In addition, John managed the construction and operation of a $110M, 50MW geothermal power plant in southern California working for Geothermal Resources International. He has many years’ experience in a variety of geotechnical field projects, including terrestrial heat flow studies in central Mexico, earthquake research at the USGS on the San Andreas Fault, geothermal and petroleum exploration and production in Alaska and the Gulf Coast. John’s technical expertise includes groundwater restoration and remediation, subsurface structural and stratigraphy analysis, petrophysics and interpolation/characterization methodologies specifically for reservoir modeling, with automated history matching. Dr. Ziagos holds a BS degree in mathematics and physics (1970) from Western Illinois University, and a PhD in geophysics (1983) from Southern Methodist University.
