Experience

• 

  Mitraniketan (the abode of friends)

  Jun 1963 - Aug 1964

  Volunteer in village development

  Spearheaded an attempt to establish a village-based cooperative for extracting graphite from a high quality ore body which prior to World War I had been successfully exploited by a German mining company.

• 

  U.s. geological survey (usgs)

  Sept 1965 - Sept 1978

  Research hydrologist

  Project Leader: National research project on the theoretical aspects of land subsidence. Based on the first principles of physics, developed innovative and award winning mathematical theory and computer codes that revolutionized the accurate simulation of in situ transient land subsidence due to measured fluid withdrawal (oil, gas, water, steam, brine) in the field from geologic material. These simulations morphed into an empirically corroborated precise method for making internationally recognized and universally duplicated accurate predictions of subsidence over periods of months to decades. Invited instructor, National Advanced Ground Water School, USGS (1972-78). Invited UNESCO instructor in Mexico City to teach quantitative land subsidence prediction to international subsidence experts (1978). Show less

• 

  Lawrence livermore national laboratory (llnl), university of california

  Sept 1978 - Aug 1984

  Research physicist

  Group Leader of the Geohydrology and Environmental Studies Group; Field investigations of two local groundwater contamination sites that later became designated as EPA superfund sites; Geohydrology Task Leader for the Yucca Mountain project (at the time, the proposed site for the nation's high-radiation-level nuclear waste repository); Project Leader of a number of projects such as: 1) evaluating the potential for land subsidence and induced seismicity beneath the Imperial Valley, California that may be associated with future exploitation of the valley's geothermal energy at depth. 2) the same along the Gulf of Mexico's coastline that may be associated with energy production from deep naturally geopressured zones. Subsidence has already been experienced worldwide above oil reservoirs and groundwater systems in response to fluid withdrawal. Under specific geologic conditions, injecting fluids at depth triggers earth tremors. Sabbatical leave from the Univ. of Calif. (December 1982-December 1983) to conduct research on land subsidence in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria State, Australia:.Founding member of the Board of Directors, Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California (1980-84). Show less

• 

  Commonwealth scientific and industrial research organisation (csiro)

  Aug 1984 - Mar 1992

  Principal research scientist

  Head of the Geohydraulics Section of CSIRO's Geomechanics Division; Ex-officio member of the Division's Consultive Committee; Divisional representative to the CSIRO Officers Association/union; Principal Investigator of a number of research projects. Adjunct Professor to James Cook Univ. and to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Exchange Scientist to the Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Consultant to: Victoria State Rural Water Commission, State Electricity Commission of Victoria, BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary) Minerals Division, INTEVEP (Research arm of Venezuela's consortium of nationalized oil companies). Unpaid leave of absence: December 1989-March 1992 to Las Vegas (punctuated in 1990 by a CSIRO summer research project on fluidized beds at the University of Colorado). Show less

• 

  Nevada bureau of mines and geology (nbmg)

  Dec 1989 - Mar 1998

  Research geohydrologist

  NBMG acts as the state geological survey: Director, Las Vegas Office of NBMG; Coordinator of an eleven-agency (city, county, state, and federal) study of land subsidence in Las Vegas valley; Principal Investigator of a number of projects; Consultant in land subsidence to state agencies outside Nevada within the U.S. and in Taiwan. Also to private companies in California and in New Zealand that produce geothermal power. Unpaid leave of absence to Baltimore, Maryland: March 1996-March 1998.

• 

  University of nevada, reno (unr)

  Apr 1992 - Mar 1998

  Research professor of geology

  UNR: Recruited, financed with research grants, advised, and mentored doctoral students in hydrogeology. Tenured professorship held jointly between the Department of Earth Sciences at UNR and the NBMG.UNLV: Adjunct professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.USGS (GS15): Summer position as a part-time career employee of the USGS to guide a national research effort to develop innovative theory and computer codes to simulate in three dimensions the observed time lag in land deformation in response to the withdrawal of subsurface fluids -- such as water, oil, brine, gas, and/or steam (1992-99). Show less

• 

  Morgan state university (msu)

  Mar 1996 - Apr 2009

  Professor of civil engineering

  Samuel P. Massie Chair of Excellence at Morgan State University (One of the U.S. Dept. of Energy's roughly ten Chaired Professorships in Environmental Disciplines -- one Chair per university). During this period, Morgan graduated more civil engineering and electrical engineering African American students than any other school in the nation. At Morgan's recently established (1984) and accredited School of Engineering, Dr. Helm helped launch a successful graduate program (M.S. and D.Eng.) while initially the only tenured full professor faculty member within the School of Engineering. Formal plaques of appreciation from professional societies, universities, and government agencies in the U.S., Taiwan, China, and Nigeria. Invited keynote speaker 1) at a national Symposium on Helm's Hydraulic Theory of Earth Fissuring, Association of Engineering Geologists Annual Meeting, 2005, Reno, 2) at the Plenary Session of the International Association of Engineering Geology and the Environment's 2013 Meeting, Beijing. Adjunct professor at the University of Nevada, Virginia Tech, Howard University, and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Baltimore Chapter of the National Society of Professional Engineers (President). Baltimore Engineers Club (Board of Directors). Massie Chair Emeritus, 2009-present. Show less

• 

  Home

  Apr 2009 - now

  Mathematical research into cosmology

  Retirement has thrown open a door to pursuing a longstanding curiosity: How did the world begin? Where is the cosmos headed? Finding the key to an improved answer likely requires no more than pencil, paper, patience, and a long life. With due apologies for oversimplifying the philosophy of Karl Popper, the Summary given above outlines my modus operandi during a career of exploring how water flows through a structure of moving solid particles whose grain-to-grain friction tends to restrain granular movement and whose water-to-grain viscosity tends to enhance it. I am now applying Popper's method to search for dark energy within the cosmos. "To boldly go where none has gone before!" -- via mathematics as one's space-time vehicle, fueled by one's curiosity. Show less