Aileen Zebrowski

Reservoir and Completions Engineer

[email protected]

Aileen Zebrowski is a reservoir and completions engineer at ResFrac focusing on reservoir data analysis, improving workflows, and customer support.

Prior to joining ResFrac, Aileen completed a master’s thesis at the University of Utah, researching the evolution of surface and subsurface steam features at the Roosevelt Hot Springs hydrothermal system. Before that, she worked in consulting as an environmental engineer in Virginia and Wisconsin for several years, conducting environmental sampling and remediation, and served a term with the Maine Conservation Corps.

Aileen earned her Master of Science degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Utah, with a tailored interest in geothermal energy. She also holds a Bachelor of Environmental Engineering degree from the University of Minnesota.

Aileen is a self-described adventurous homebody, and enjoys climbing, hiking, biking, skiing, and all-around general exploring while also enjoying the opportunity to stay home and read, play games, or strum the ukulele.

Aileen's posts

Production impact of horizontal fractures

At the 2025 SPE International Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference, we (Dontsov, Zoback, McClure, and Fowler) presented “Hydraulic Fracture Propagation Along Bedding Planes Might Be More Prevalent Than We Think” (SPE-226637). The paper reviewed case studies with evidence of horizontal or bedding plane fractures from microseismic, fiber optics, core observations, and casing deformation.

Testing the new Kryvenko model for proppant washout

What controls proppant placement during hydraulic fracturing? As described in Chapter 8 from McClure et al. (2025), ResFrac incorporates a variety of physical processes – viscous drag, gravitational settling, hindered settling, clustered settling, bed slumping, and more. In addition, ResFrac accounts for the complex physics associated with proppant flowing out of the wellbore (Dontsov, 2023; Ponners et al., 2025).

$Horizontal fracture initiated along weak bedding plane or frictional interface in ResFrac$

Horizontal hydraulic fractures in ResFrac

Horizontal hydraulic fracture propagation is believed to be widespread in shale plays where the frac gradient approaches the overburden – such as the Vaca Muerta, Utica, and Montney. However, horizontal propagation is nearly always ignored in hydraulic fracture modeling. In ResFrac, we are obsessed with ‘getting the physics right’, and so naturally, we extended our simulator to handle horizontal fracturing. The first version of this new capability was released earlier this year. We are eager to start collecting feedback from users, which will help us to fine tune the algorithm and workflow.