Dr. Yuri Makogon, an esteemed researcher who retired from Texas A&M University in 2008, passed away on May 26.
Makogon discovered natural gas hydrate deposits in nature in 1965, authored over 270 scientific papers, wrote eight books, and held 29 patents. He was a world-renowned expert on gas hydrates and an astute research scholar of the water-gas phase behavior in the Earth’s stratum. His career in oil and gas education and research spanned 60 years.
In 1995, Makogon became a faculty member in the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M. He established a hydrate research lab, recently rededicated as the Yuri F. Makogon Gas Hydrate and Source Rock Petrophysics Laboratory. His work helped to expand the knowledge of many important physical gas hydrate properties, but his presence and interaction with fellow faculty made a difference beyond academics.
He was kind and gentle to all. We will miss him very much.
“He was the humblest scientist I know,” said Dr. Ding Zhu. “When mentioning his accomplishments, which were extremely significant, he always smiled and replied, ‘I am just an experimentalist, nothing big.’”
“Yuri Makogon was a most remarkable man,” said Dr. John Lee. “His scholarship was renowned worldwide, but perhaps less well known was his humanity. He personally helped me achieve international recognition for my achievements, which paled when compared to his. He opened doors for me that would have been closed without his assistance. He was kind and gentle to all. We will miss him very much.”
“Yuri Makogon was a wonderful person and scientist,” said Dr. David Schechter. “He had true passion for his work and was widely celebrated as a result. He loved working in his hydrate lab, which was meticulously maintained. I’ll always remember the passion he exuded when he was showing the most recent photos of the complex hydrates he created in his lab. Yuri was also a kind and gentle soul with a subtle but hilarious sense of humor that he delivered with a sparkle in his eyes. He was a great Aggie. We will miss you Yuri.”
“He is the most recognized scientist this department has ever had,” said Dr. Dan Hill. “And he was a cheerful, pleasant colleague to all.”
Makogon received the Heritage Award acknowledging his personal, cooperative and lifelong achievements in the oil and gas industry during the 2016 Offshore Technology Conference. The previous year, he received the President’s Star of Success Award from the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences on his 85th birthday.