Magni Research
Our Team
Magni Research LLC is a consulting venture by Dr. Laura Waters and Dr. Alex Rinehart.
Both Laura and Alex are both experimentalists focused on high temperature mineral reactions and rock mechanics.
Magni Research is founded in the spirit of serving the geothermal industry, with designs of supporting clean energy.
Dr. Laura Waters
Dr. Laura Waters is an experimentalist with over 15 years of experience building, maintaining and running experimental vessels. She has expertise in several analytical techniques to support the characterization of experimental products, ranging from sample preparation of small materials, scanning electron microscopy, electron dispersive spectroscopy, electron microprobe analysis, electron back scatter diffraction, ICP-MS of fluids and interpretation of of these datasets in the context of mineralogy/materials.
Laura received her PhD (Volcanology and Experimental Geochemistry) from University of Michigan and her BS (Geology) from the Juniata College. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Michigan and in the Department of Mineral Sciences at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
Dr. Alex Rinehart
Dr. Alex Rinehart has worked in high pressure, high temperature chemomechanical experimental research for 15+ years while working at New Mexico Tech (PRRC, EES and NM Bureau of Geology) and at Sandia National Laboratory.
His experimental experience includes long-term flow-through, relative permeability and creep testing for carbon sequestration and EOR, quasistatic compressive strength testing in chemically active environments at reservoir conditions, various fracture mechanics and hydraulic fracture experimentation, and high temperature (300 C) cyclic thermal stress testing. He has experience in acoustic emissions and ultrasonic nondestructive testing techniques, in post-test failure analysis via optical petrography, and in XRCT imaging of reacted and fractured samples.
He received his PhD (Geoscience, emph. Geophysics) and MS (Hydrology) from New Mexico Tech, and his BS (Mathematics, Distributed) from the University of New Mexico.
