Dr. Mark D. Zoback is the Benjamin M. Page Professor of Geophysics at Stanford University, Director of the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative and Co-Director of the Stanford Center for Induced and Triggered Seismicity and the Stanford Center for Carbon Storage and Senior Fellow in the Precourt Institute for Energy.  Dr. Zoback conducts research on in situ stress, fault mechanics, and reservoir geomechanics with an emphasis on shale gas, tight gas and tight oil production as well as CO₂ sequestration. He is the author of two textbooks and the author/co-author of about 400 technical papers. His first book is entitled Reservoir Geomechanics published in 2007 by Cambridge University Press. His online course based on this book has been completed by over 10,000 students around the world. A new book, Unconventional Reservoir Geomechanics, was written with Arjun Kohli, and published in 2019. Dr. Zoback was the founder of GMI, GeoMechanics International, a software and consulting company that was acquired by Baker Hughes in 2008.

Dr. Zoback has received a number of awards and honors including election to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and the Robert R. Berg Outstanding Research Award of the AAPG in 2015. He is currently chair of the Society of Petroleum Engineers Technical Committee on Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage.