Joe Reilly

Joseph M. Reilly received a BSc. (1977) from the University of Rochester, New York, an MSc. (1980) from Virginia Tech. and is a licensed geophysicist in the State of Texas. His professional career began as a graduate student at the Virginia Tech Orogenic Studies Laboratory, where he worked on surface mapping and potential field modeling in the Piedmont region. These projects were funded by DOE and NRC contracts and focused on geothermal energy and nuclear waste disposal investigations.

In 1980 he joined Mobil Exploration and Producing Services Inc., Dallas. Over the years, Reilly has contributed to exploration, development, and production projects worldwide, continuously adapting to the norms and cultures of the host societies. A partial list of countries where he has lived or worked and played a direct role in project execution includes the UK, Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, Nigeria, Angola, Malaysia, UAE, Guyana, Russia, Vietnam, Australia, Greenland, Norway, Morocco, Canada, and the USA. He is the author or co-author of several hundred technical presentations and published papers.

From 2000 to 2005, Reilly managed ExxonMobil’s Geophysical Processing and Geophysical Applications Groups. From 2005 to 2008, he served as Manager of Integrated Seismic Research at ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company, where he led the team that launched the Breakthrough program, now known as Full Waveform Inversion. He later held the position of Chief Research Geoscientist (Senior Executive) for ExxonMobil Upstream Research until his retirement in 2021. Currently, Reilly consults on various technology development and application projects and serves as the 2024-2025 President of the Society of Exploration Geophysics.