Mark J. Kaiser is Professor and Director of Research and Development at the Center for Energy Studies at Louisiana State University, and adjunct professor in the Craft and Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering and the Department of Environmental Studies at LSU. His research interest covers the oil, gas, and refining industry, and is related to cost assessment, fiscal analysis, infrastructure modeling, and valuation studies. Dr. Kaiser has led several studies and published extensively on decommissioning in the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Kaiser holds a Ph.D. from Purdue University.