Pat Dobson pent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech, where he was introduced into the world of experimental petrology. After a brief stint as a postdoc at UC Santa Barbara, he then moved to Unocal’s Hartley Research Center, where he ran the stable isotope laboratory. Pat then transferred to Unocal’s Geothermal Division, where he was involved in the exploration of geothermal systems in Indonesia, Central America, and South America.
Dobson joined the former Earth Sciences Division of LBNL in 2000, and has been involved in a variety of geologic and geochemical research projects. He led LBNL’s efforts in the study of the Peña Blanca uranium deposits, a natural analogue for flow and transport processes at Yucca Mountain. From 2007 to 2009, he served as a detailee for the Geosciences Research Program of DOE’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Pat became the lead for LBNL’s Geothermal Systems Program in 2016.