Deans Speaker Series

Tinkers career in the oll and gas industry includes Robert M. Sneider Exploration in Houston, Texas (1982-83), Union Pacific Resources in Englewood, Colorado (1985-1988) and Marathon Oil's Petroleum Technology Center (1988-1999). He became the director of the Bureau of Economic Geology in 2000 at the University of Texas at Austin (2000-present). Tinker has served as the state geologist of Texas (2000-present) and he is now a professor, holding the Edwin Allday Endowed Chair of Subsurface Geology in the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin (2002-present).

Tinker is the founder and Chairman of the non-partisan Switch Energy Alliance, a 501(c)(3), whose vision is to inspire an energy-educated future through films. He is the co-producer and on-screen guide for the feature-length documentary, Switch, the critically acclaimed film released in 2012 on global energy. He is also the writer and the on-screen guide for Switch On, released in 2019, about global energy poverty.

Tinker has visited over 65 countries and made over 850 invited and keynote lectures to audiences globally.