 His advisor was Theodore R. Madden and the title of his thesis was "Electromagnetic Effects of Atmospheric Gravity Waves".Claerbout is the founder of the Stanford Exploration Project (SEP), the first geophysical research consortium funded by the oil and gas industry.Claerbout has been a doctoral advisor to many of influential geophysicists who joined SEP such as Oz Yilmaz and Biondo Biondi.