Franklin M. ("Lynn") Orr, Jr. became GCEP Project Director in November 2002. He is the Keleen and Carlton Beal Professor in Petroleum Engineering within the Department of Energy Resources Engineering.

Orr was the Chester Naramore Dean of the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University from 1994 to 2002.

Orr earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Stanford in 1969 and his doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1976. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1985.

Orr's research interests include multiphase flow in porous media; interactions of high-pressure phase equilibria of multicomponent mixtures with multiphase flow, with applications to enhanced oil recovery by gas injection processes and contaminant transport in aquifers; modeling of large-scale, hydrodynamically unstable flows in naturally heterogeneous porous media; theory of first-order partial differential equations as applied to chromatographic separations that occur during multiphase flow in porous media; capillary phenomena of near-critical fluids in porous systems; and gas hydrates and CO₂ sequestration.

Orr was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2000. He is a member of the boards of directors of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.