About Katlyn MacKay

Katlyn MacKay

Scientist, Global Methane

Work

Areas of expertise:

Methane emissions, gas measurement, inventories and field work

Description

Dr. Katlyn MacKay is a Scientist in EDF's Office of the Chief Scientist. Her current work is focused on characterizing the sources and magnitudes of global anthropogenic methane emissions in support of the MethaneSAT mission.

Background

Katlyn has over 7 years of experience in measuring methane emissions across the oil and gas industry. She has previously participated in projects related to knowledge translation, training, and controlled release testing, alongside many of Canada’s major oil and gas companies and several prolific sensor manufacturers. Her PhD research focused on collecting and analyzing methane measurements to better understand emission patterns and magnitudes across Canada’s oil and gas sector, and to improve national inventory estimates and modeling.

Education

PhD Oil & Gas Engineering, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada (2023)

MSc Earth Sciences, St. Francis Xavier University, Canada (2017)

BSc Earth Sciences, St. Francis Xavier University, Canada (2015)

Publications

Seymour, S.P., Xie, D., Li, H.Z., MacKay, K., 2022. Sources and reliability of reported methane reductions from the oil and gas industry in Alberta, Canada. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene 10 (1), 00073. https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2022.00073

Lavoie, M., MacKay, K., Stirling, J., Risk, D., 2022. Methane inventories, but not regulatory submissions, show major variations in methane intensity for Canadian oil and gas producers. Cleaner Environmental Systems 5, 100081. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cesys.2022.100081

Lavoie, M., Baillie, J., Bourlon, E., O’Connell, E., MacKay, K., Boelens, I., Risk, D., 2022. Sweet and sour: A quantitative analysis of methane emissions in contrasting Alberta, Canada, heavy oil developments. Science of The Total Environment, 807, Pt2, 150836. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150836

MacKay, K., Lavoie, M., Bourlon, E., Atherton, E., O’Connell, E., Baillie, J., Fougère, C., Risk, D., 2021. Methane emissions from upstream oil and gas production in Canada are underestimated. Scientific Reports, 11, 8041. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-87610-3

MacKay, K., Risk, D., Atherton, E., Fougère, C., Bourlon, E., O’Connell, E., Baillie, J. 2019. Fugitive and vented methane emissions surveying on the Weyburn CO2-EOR field in southeastern Saskatchewan, Canada. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 88, 118–123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2019.05.032

Baillie, J., Risk, D., Atherton, E., O’Connell, E., Fougère, C., Bourlon, E., MacKay, K., 2019.

Methane emissions from conventional and unconventional oil and gas production sites in southeastern Saskatchewan, Canada. Environ. Res. Commun. 1, 011003. https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7620/ab01f2