Drilling for Geologic Solutions

It’s no small ambition to compile a vast geologic library that could one day drive forward solutions on everything from energy consumption to environmental degradation. But Corey Hoydic, now a doctoral student in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences studying energy systems engineering, says the seeds of his project were planted during his free-wheeling childhood in the post-industrial city of Erie, Pennsylvania.

Those were halcyon days of block parties, pickup basketball, and barbecue grilling, all punctuated by the sounds of Lynyrd Skynyrd drifting from the garage. By the end of high school, Corey’s love of music had evolved from casual interest to obsessive preoccupation. He immersed himself in the world of music, eventually starting a vinyl collection, forming a garage band, hosting underground rock shows, DJing, and dabbling in guitar, bass, and drums. It was this unusual latitude for open-ended discovery, according to Corey, that shaped his academic disposition.

“My parents never set a bedtime or imposed rules,” Corey said. “I mean, my dad hoped I’d become an NFL kicker, but they gave me the total freedom to set my own course. So I guess it’s partly their fault that I’m not content to answer other people’s questions—I’ve just got too many of my own.”

He’s quick to add, however, that along the course of his educational journey, he learned a vital lesson that cut in the opposite direction: to pursue his interests, he’d need to rely on others for inspiration, mentorship, and financial support.

Corey’s parents each stepped away from high-earning careers when he was born. His father cut short a career in insurance, and his mother transitioned to a lower-paying sales job so that she could spend more time with her family. As he grew older, Corey often wondered how he could repay those sacrifices. He also fretted silently about how he’d come up with the money to attend college—and if it would mean miring his parents in debt and forestalling their retirement.

Financial pressure notwithstanding, Corey started at University Park in 2014 in the Schreyer Honors College, still looking for the right niche. He found his first spark in a lecture by Richard Alley, Evan Pugh University Professor of Geosciences at Penn State, whose charismatic fascination with the natural world drew him like a magnet to major in petroleum engineering. “He made me realize that the earth is the final frontier of nature, right under us and yet we know so little about it. I was sold.”

Then, two years later and on the fence about attending graduate school, Corey made a new acquaintance as he circulated among the faculty in his department. “I met with maybe ten professors, and the last was Sanjay Srinivasan. He changed my life.”

My parents never set a bedtime or imposed rules,” Corey said. “I mean, my dad hoped I’d become an NFL kicker, but they gave me the total freedom to set my own course. So I guess it’s partly their fault that I’m not content to answer other people’s questions—I’ve just got too many of my own.”

Srinivasan is a professor of petroleum and natural gas engineering who holds the John and Willie Leone Family chair in Energy and Mineral Engineering. He validated Corey’s passion for conceptualizing abstract and even philosophical questions and convinced him that studying energy systems engineering at Penn State was the right pathway for his graduate studies.

“He triggered something inside me that has fed my hunger to push the boundaries of unknowability,” said Corey. That meant combining geology, spatial statistics, and signal processing to create a geologic library that could one day be leveraged to tackle problems such as carbon sequestration, groundwater depletion, or hydrocarbon production. By going to the crux of geologic mysteries, Corey saw how he could go beyond merely tinkering with neatly defined challenges to propel innovation on a larger scale.

But Srinivasan also helped in another far-reaching way that dramatically changed Corey’s life: connecting him with scholarships and research funding. In his senior year alone, three separate endowments—the Marie Radomsky and Vernon W. Ellzey Honors Scholarship in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, the Victor and Anna Mae Beghini Scholarship for Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineers, and the Raja V. and Geetha V. Ramani Honor Scholarships Fund in Mineral Engineering—combined with research assistance from Srinivasan’s own research lab would eventually mean that Corey could pay off his undergraduate loans by the time he graduated with his bachelor’s degree.

Corey’s funding from philanthropic endowments gave him the freedom to pursue his projects with laser focus, but even more importantly to Corey, it gave his family’s breadwinner—his mom—the financial security to finally retire.

“She’d made so many sacrifices, worked herself to exhaustion, and I was going to do everything in my power to lift that burden from her shoulders. Funding from Penn State alumni and friends made my goal a reality, and she was able to retire in July of last year.”

With an anticipated graduation in 2024, Corey is candid about the fact that his success in higher education has been predicated on the generosity of Penn State alumni and friends, and that whatever accomplishments he tallies are ultimately in service of helping others to thrive.

“My dad always says to me, ‘Don’t do anything you don’t like for too long.’ I know that a life just pursuing wealth is not going to make me happy. I’d like to leave my fingerprints on something meaningful that makes people healthier, happier contributors to a better world. And if I’m lucky enough to be financially successful, I’d love to pay it forward someday, and to lift up the next kid who just needs the resources to get his dreams off the ground.”