About
Engineering the rock beneath a lower-carbon, more secure energy system.
Dr. Zhidi Wu studies how fluid flow, chemical reaction, and mechanical stress interact in subsurface rock, and she uses high-pressure high-temperature experimental and Bayesian framework to study topics across CO₂ storage, geomechanical uncertainty quantification, geologic hydrogen, and salt cavern engineering.
Most researchers in subsurface energy specialize in one application: CO₂ storage, geomechanics, or, more rarely, geologic hydrogen. My research spans all three, unified by the same hydro-chemo-mechanical (HCM) coupling framework, the same high-pressure high-temperature flow-through experimental method, and a Bayesian uncertainty-quantification approach I developed to make small, expensive datasets usable with honest confidence bounds. At Agapito Associates, I now apply that toolkit to a fourth domain: numerical geomechanical modeling of solution-mined salt caverns used for critical-mineral production and energy storage.
Research areas
- CO₂ Storage & EOR (2016–2025): New Mexico Tech / University of Utah
- Bayesian Uncertainty Quantification (2019–2024): University of Utah
- Geologic Hydrogen (2024–2026): Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Salt Cavern Storage (current): Agapito Associates, LLC
At a glance
- Now: Project Engineer, Agapito Associates
- Prior: Postdoctoral Researcher, Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Ph.D.: University of Utah, Civil & Environmental Engineering
- M.S.: New Mexico Tech, Hydrology
- B.S.: New Mexico Tech, Geology; Yangtze University, Petroleum Geology
- Peer-reviewed publications: 15, spanning 4 research areas
- Peer review: 37 manuscripts for 11 journals since 2020
- Affiliations: AGU · ARMA · SMRI
A full CV is available upon request. Please email me.