Utkarsh Sinha is an Associate Research Engineer at Xecta Digital Labs. He’s responsible for the R&D activities in unconventional reservoirs, serving digital solutions for the energy industry by fusing physics and data-driven methods for applications in solving reservoir and production engineering problems. Utkarsh is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and has served in several roles including advisory positions,chairperson, and technical committee member in industry initiatives, and authored published manuscripts on applications of machine learning in reservoir  engineering in leading journals and conference proceedings. He has a B.Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from VIT University, India, and M.Eng degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Houston.

Dr. Yuxing Ben is a reservoir engineer at Occidental, where she develops hybrid physics and data-driven solutions in the subsurface engineering technology group. She won the best paper award from URTeC 2019 and was selected as a SPE distinguished lecturer for 2021 on “Machine Learning Applications for Optimizing Real-Time Drilling and Hydraulic Fracturing”. Prior to Oxy, Dr. Ben developed hydraulic fracturing models for Baker Hughes and Halliburton and was a postdoc at MIT. She has authored more than 30 papers and holds three US patents. She earned a BS in theoretical mechanics at Peking University, and a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame.

Jennifer Terrell is the Content Processing Manager for SPE’s Technical Publications group. She is responsible for managing SPE’s conference paper publication process, PetroWiki and oversees the technical paper education webinars for ATCE.

Dr. Tao Yang is a chief professional at Equinor, holding a position as a senior specialist in reservoir technology. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences (NTVA). Dr. Yang has worked extensively on PVT and reservoir fluid analysis, gas-based improved oil recovery, and advanced data analytics. Due to his innovation in real-time fluid identification, Dr. Yang received the "Best Data Management and Application Solution Award" of the World Oil Awards in 2022.

Dr. Yang was selected as an SPE Distinguished Lecturer for the 2017-2018 season. He received the SPE North Sea Technical Award for Reservoir Description and Dynamic in 2011 and the SPE Distinguished Membership Award in 2019.

Bob Pearson, P. Eng.,is an independent Petroleum Engineering Advisor. He has extensive experience includes Field Development Planning and Production Engineering for onshore, shelf and deep-water projects, as well as completions design for Conventional and Unconventional Wells. 

After working for 13 years for major Operators (Shell International and Petro-Canada (now Suncor)), he has spent the last 40years working as a consult with APA Petroleum Engineering and RPS Energy, as well as his own independent companies in Singapore, Australia & Canada. He currently dividing his time between Canada and the UK. He provides advisory and peer review services through Glynn Resources Ltd.

Bob Pearson has a BSc. (Hons) in Mining Engineering from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the U.K. and is a registered Professional Engineer with APEGA in Alberta, Canada. He joined the SPE in Aberdeen in1975and was the 2019-22 SPE Technical Director for Production & Facilities, as well as being a former SPE Distinguished Lecturer.

Neeraj Nandurdikar joined Wood Mackenzie as their Global Head of Power and Renewables Consulting in the Energy Transition Practice and now runs their global energy transition consulting practice and consulting for all sectors in Americas. Neeraj joined Wood Mackenzie after having run a successful, steadily growing global energy consulting practice for 21 years. Neeraj holds Petroleum Engineering degrees from the Maharashtra Institute of Technology and the University of Tulsa (MS), an MBA from Wharton and is the co-author of a book on Project Leadership called Leading Complex Projects: A Data-Driven Approach to Mastering the Human Side of Project Management.

C. Susan Howes, PE, PHR, is Vice President Engineering at Subsurface Consultants & Associates, LLC, in Houston, Texas, where she maintains technical quality standards for consultancy, recruitment and training services. A Petroleum Engineering (PE) graduate of the University of Texas(UT) ,Howes started her career at Anadarko, holding roles in reservoir engineering, business development, corporate engineering, and HR. Howes joined Chevron as Manager of the Horizons Program and served as Reservoir Management Consultant at Chevron providing functional leadership that resulted in improved production and reserve trends. Howes is an industry leader in talent attraction, development, and retention. Howes serves on the Colorado School of Mines PE Department Program Advisory Board, the Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council BOD, the Society of Women Engineers –Houston Area Nominating Committee, and previously chaired the UT PGE Distinguished Alumni Committee. She chairs the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) US Advisory Council and the SPE Management Technical Section. Howes served as SPE Regional Director for Gulf Coast North America,received the SPE DeGolyer Distinguished Service Medal, is an Honorary Member of SPE, and was a SPE Distinguished Lecturer for 2019-20. Howes received the 2020 Woman of Excellence award from the Federation of Houston Professional Women.

Asma Yamani received her B.S. degree in computer science from Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, in 2019 and her M.S. degree in computer science from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia, in 2020. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. degree in computer science also at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia.

Yamani's research interest is in Applied Machine Learning. More specifically, in solving problems related to Petroleum Engineering and Energy using AI. She also worked on several projects related to NLP and Computer Vision. She is a Women in Data Science Ambassador and has been recently exploring ethical and usability issues related to AI systems.

Abdulbaset Ali received his M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, USA, in 2009 and his Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 2017. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, NL, Canada working on a drilling data analytics project to enhance drilling efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. Abdulbaset is interested in working on projects related to machine learning and computer vision and welcomes collaboration.

Cesar Vivas is a Ph.D. Candidate at University of Oklahoma, Geothermal and Thermal Energy Storage Research Group. Before embarking on a Ph.D. at OU Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering, where he investigated the use of oil and gas infrastructure for geothermal and thermal energy storage, Cesar was a Principal Applications Engineer and Country Services Lead of Coring and Downhole Tools with Halliburton. Cesar garnered over 10 years of oil and gas experience in several roles and locations in onshore and offshore operations.

Pradeep Ashok is a PhD. in mechanical engineering and a senior research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin where he performs research on drilling automation technologies. He has published more than 50 papers related to drilling automation covering topics on modelling, controls, sensor development, data analytics, ML/AI, etc.

Pradeep Ashok is also the CTO of Intellicess, and in that role has guided the development and deployment of Sentinel RT™, a hybrid (combination AI and Physics based) drilling advisory software on more than 1200 wells.

He actively volunteers his time for SPE and IADC and is currently on the organizing committee for the SPE/IADC drilling conference. He is also the student competition chair for the SPE DUPTS (Drilling Uncertainty and Predictions Technical Section) which in 2022 hosted a student competition on the development of an AI model for automatically grading used drill bits.

Mehdi Matt Honarpour is the CEO and President of the Honarpour Technology Company, HTC, LLC. He currently provides consulting and integrated training for Energy companies. Previously, he was the Principal Reservoir Engineer at BHP, the Global Reservoir Engineering Advisor at Hess Corporation, and a Senior Reservoir Engineering Advisor at ExxonMobil. He has extensive experience in reservoir characterization and reservoir engineering and their impact on reservoir system performance. He has contributed extensively to the science and practice of rock-fluid characterization, integration of core analysis data, wire line log and well test  data for conventional sandstone, naturally fractured carbonates and Unconventional reservoirs. He has done extensive work in the characterization of recovery mechanisms including chemical, gas injection/gravity drainage, low salinity water flood and MEOR. He was the coordinator of the laboratory study of CO2/H2S storage, CS&UST in Arab C aquifer. He has coordinated work in viscous oil, light oil, volatile oil, gas-condensate, and dry gas reservoirs. Matt has expertise in static and dynamic characterization deepwater GoM sandstone formations. He has worked on giant gas, gas-condensate and oil reservoirs around the world. Dr. Honarpour has several years of teaching and mentoring experience in both academia and in the petroleum industry. He has served as project manager of large, multidisciplinary projects. He has been an active member of SPE over the past 50 years. Dr. Honarpour contributed to the development of the API Subcommittee on Core Analysis, RP-40, published in 1998. He has published 3 books and many SPE, AAPG, SPWLA technical papers and presentations. Awards and Leadership Positions: 

•Recipient of 2017 SPE Distinguished Member Award
•Recipient of 2013 SPE International Technical Review Award
•Recipient of the 2011 SPE International Formation Evaluation Award
•Outstanding SPE REE Technical Editor –2007
•President of the Society of Core Analysts-1988
•SCA Lifetime Achievement Award 2000, AbuDhabi

Yildiray Cinar is a senior reservoir engineer with Saudi Aramco. Previously, he was a senior lecturer at University of New South Wales and a postdoc at Stanford University. He holds a PhD from Claustral Technical University and BS and MS degrees from Istanbul Technical University, all in petroleum engineering. His areas of interest include special core analysis, reservoir management, EOR/EGR and CO2 sequestration in subsurface formations.

With a couple of decades of experience in the Human Resources domain, Celestina Raggi has moved to Dubai in January 2020 covering the role of Vice President, Human Resources, Emerson Middle East & Africa. Holding a degree in Cultural Mediation, and a Master’s in Human Resources, her career grew in global companies where her main focus has been on developing people and  organizations. Before joining Emerson in Europe in 2018, she practiced business and executive coaching, particularly in changing environments.

SPE Chair of Data Science & Engineering Analytics Technical Section Board

Former Chief Data Officer at Shell for Subsurface and Wells

Accomplished global data leader with three decades of experience in leading enterprise data projects, and currently is Non-Exec Board member of Ikon Science. Former Chief Data Officer at Shell for Subsurface and Wells. She is recognized in Shell for delivering Data & Digitalization strategies, building a global data community, establishing data-centricity and data quality transparency, and enabling easy access solutions for Asset efficiency gains in the millions (USD). Sushma has won several Shell CIO and EVP awards, presented technical papers at SPE, including within Shell and at many external conferences. She is also SPE International 2020 M&I and Gulf-Coast Section 2019 M&I awards recipient, Advisor for SPE Data Science and Engineering Analytics Board, Chair of SPE’s Data Science & Engineering Analytics Technical Section Board, and Advisor on Rice University Professional Sciences Master’s Board. Sushma also served as President of Shell’s D&I employee’s networks for women and Asian-Pacific. She has MSc and Executive MBA degrees. She is married with two adult sons, and enjoys jogging, reading, biking, painting, and travel.

Lisa Jiang has more than 24 years of HR experience. This includes seven years in Global Organization and nine years with Schneider Electric as Vice President, HR, Global Supply Chain, Vice President, HR, Global Procurement and Vice President, HR, Global Commercial, IA. She is currently based in Paris, France.

Aarti Dange is an upstream oil and gas professional with around 17years of experience in the industry. A petroleum engineer by profession, she has worked with operators and service companies in the disciplines of subsurface modeling, characterization, production and well automation and analytics.The current area of focus is digital transformation of upstream oil and gas including digitization of the wells, well diagnostics and predictive analytics with emerging technologies in the domains of Artificial intelligence and Machine learning.

Currently, she serves as Customer Experience Leader in the Middle East and Africa region supporting the Marketing and Business Development Function. Along with this,she supports product development for new digital solutions and is passionate about publishing research and thoughts on several industry platforms, both physical and electronic. She has authored several white papers published at the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and International Petroleum Technology conference (IPTC).

With keen academic interests, she enjoys lecturing at Middlesex University, Dubai as part time faculty on the business side of Information technology, Project Management and Digital Transformation. EDUCATION & CREDENTIALS: M.S., (Engineering Management), Middlesex University, 2018 and B.E., Petroleum Engineering,Maharashtra Institute of Technology, 2005.

Rajesh D. Sharma is Global Marketing Director for the Schneider Electric Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals segment, where he is responsible for developing strategies and marketing tactics, as well as new business models around Integrated Digitized Solutions for the Schneider Electric Oil & Gas portfolio of offerings. Rajesh has more than 30 years of experience in energy sector and has previously acted as Managing Director for Telvent Energia SA branch, Abu Dhabi for the Middle East region and as General Manager in Reliance Industries, India. Rajesh has published articles and papers on various topics including integrated technologies, digitalization, sustainability, and energy transition. He holds bachelor’s degree in Instrumentation Engineering from India.

Niall Fleming, SPE, is a specialist in production technology for Equinor and is based in Norway. His main interests are well productivity, formation evaluation, and completion damage. For Equinor, Fleming has held positions as leading advisor for well productivity and stimulation; lead production engineer on North Komsomolskoye in Siberia; and, latterly, production engineer on Bacalhau offshore Brazil. He holds a PhD degree in geology from Imperial College London. Fleming is executive editor for SPE Production & Operations, serves on the JPT Editorial Review Committee, and has been a member of the organizing committees for several SPE conferences and workshops. In 2015, he was awarded the SPE A Peer Apart award, and he is a four-time recipient of SPE’s outstanding technical editor award.

Jennifer Terrell is the Content Processing Manager for SPE’s Technical Publications group. She is responsible for managing SPE’s conference paper publication process, PetroWiki and oversees the technical paper education webinars for ATCE.

Pam Boschee is the managing editor of SPE’s magazines, including the Journal of Petroleum Technology, Oil and Gas Facilities, HSE Now, Data Science and Digital Engineering, and The Way Ahead. She has more than 30 years’ experience working in the energy industry, with 12 years as an editor at SPE. Boschee has worked as an editor in the upstream and power-generation industries and has previously worked as a natural gas analyst, an analytical chemist for oil-and-gas-related regulatory compliance and emissions, and as a litigation consultant for the chemical and energy industries. She holds BS and MS degrees in chemistry from the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University, respectively.

Nathaly Famiglietti is an engineer with proven experience both in technical and management. Specialize in Oil & Gas, Global Talent Acquisition, Technology, and Training & Development. Mrs. Famiglietti holds a Bachelor's Degree in Geophysical Engineering from Universidad Simon Bolivar, Venezuela. She has more than 25 years of experience in the Oil & Gas industry.

Mrs. Famiglietti joined SPE in 2021 as the Virtual Programs Development Manager and is in charge of investigating, recommending, and developing new programming and initiatives to expand SPE’s virtual learning programs, including virtual/hybrid events, webinars, and SPE Live broadcasts.

Dr. Victoria Pons is the director of research and strategic development at WellWorx Energy where she leads the research, planning and implementation of innovative new programs and products for WellWorx.

Dr. Pons is the Vice President of Artificial Lift Research and Development Council (ALRDC) as well as the project Champion for the Horizontal Well Downhole Dynamometer Data Acquisition Project (HWDDDA), an industry sponsored project aimed at designing and manufacturing downhole tools to provide downhole deviated data to the Oil & Gas industry.

Dr. Pons is very passionate about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and created a D&I Committee at ALRDC and also serves as the Treasurer for the SPE GCS D&I Committee. Involved in organizing conferences for different organizations worldwide, Dr Pons hopes to forward D&I goals by incorporating D&I segments as a norm amidst the technical discussions and programs.

As an industry SME, Dr. Victoria Pons has greatly contributed to the advancement of new algorithms for rod pump control and other forms of artificial lift. Dr. Pons began her career in Oil & Gas with Weatherford where she pioneered new techniques for the calculation and treatment of downhole data using data analytics and artificial intelligence, while leading the product strategy for Well Pilot and LOWIS.

During her time at Baker Hughes, Dr. Pons led the technical direction and customer focused strategy for Lufkin Well Manager, predictive software SROD and deviated downhole tools.

Dr. Pons holds bachelor’s in biology and mathematics, a Master of Science and Philosophy Doctorate in Applied Mathematics from the University of Houston. She also holds 12 patents in the discipline of Artificial Lift as well as over 40 publications.

Leila Bannister is a Staff Senior Reservoir Engineer with Occidental Petroleum with over 10 years of experience in the industry. The first 9 years of her career were spent in operations during which she worked in the Denver-Julesburg Basin(DJ), the Eagleford Basin, and various offshore platforms/projects in the Gulf of Mexico. In her current role, she is a Reservoir Engineer for Marlin Platform. Leila has a BS degree from Texas Tech University where she majored in Petroleum Engineering.

Indira Saripally is a Reservoir Engineer Advisor at Occidental Oil & Gas Co.(Oxy) with over 13 years of experience in the industry. She has worked in many roles in the Reservoir Engineering domain – from reservoir management, to international business development, as well as specialized technical roles such as simulation modeling in fields with secondary and tertiary recovery mechanisms. She has worked in both US-domestic energy sector, and in the Middle East. She is presently based in Houston. In her current role she manages fields in the Gulf of Mexico. Indira’s technical interests include reservoir surveillance and mature fields development.     

Indira has Masters degree in Petroleum Engineering from Stanford University. She has been actively involved with regional SPE chapters since 2005. She is currently a technical reviewer for SPE Peer-Reviewed Journal. She is also the Associate Technical Editor of the SPE publication, ‘The Way Ahead’.

Dr. Paul Joseph is a Program Manager in Intelligent Production Systems at the Center for Technology Innovation of Baker Hughes in Houston, TX. Prior to joining Baker Hughes, he worked as a Product Development Engineer at Sercel Inc and Payload System Engineer at Lockheed Martin Corp in Houston. Paul has over 25 years of experience in the Oil and Gas industry. His professional interests include technology innovation, research and development, engineering and field operations, intelligent completions, enhanced oil recovery and production optimization. Paul has a PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from Auburn University, AL.

Charles R. Vanorsdale recently retired from Saudi Aramco, where he had been a Senior Petroleum Engineering Consultant in the Upstream Development Strategy & Reserves Department.In his 15 years at Aramcoin Dhahran, he ensured compliance with PRMS guidelines in the annual reserves reporting process and was a key player in Aramco’s 2019 Initial Public Offering. Prior to Aramco, he was brought onboard at El Paso Corporation to bring their coal bed methane reserves in compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission rules.Charles has been focused on reserves assessment and guidelines since 1980 when he joined an international consulting firm. His career has spanned over 40 years, starting with Getty Oil Company in the late 1970s. Charles served on the SPE Oil & Gas Reserves Committee from 2017 to 2021 and on numerous other SPE committees since 1989. A registered professional engineer in the states of Texas and Oklahoma, Charles earned a BS in Petroleum Engineering and a Masters of Engineering Management, both from the University of Tulsa.

Steve McCants has over forty-two years of experience working in various positions of increasing responsibility. He most recently formed Rivercrest Oil and Gas with a focus on consulting and M&A Evaluations for clients.  Prior to this he was Head of Reservoir Engineering at CC Energy Service Inc, he held positions in Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy) as Chief Subsurface Manager for the Mid-Continent Region, Director of Reserves and worked in the Corporate Reserves Group. Additionally, he worked for Altura Energy, a limited partnership formed in 1997 through a combination of the former Amoco Corporation and Shell properties in the Permian basin. He began his career with Amoco Production Company. Steve has a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) serving in many positions in the Gulf Coast Section, including Chairman. He also served on the PRMS 2018 update committee and served as the Oil and Gas Reserves Committee (OGRC) Chairman for SPE in 2019-2020.

Zachary Evans is the Reservoir Storage Manager for WSP, a global leader in underground energy storage consulting, where he leads reservoir engineering and business development efforts in both traditional natural gas storage and other porous media applications. Mr. Evans has over 15 years of underground storage experience, having spent the majority of his career as a Senior Storage Engineer for the Columbia Gas / TC Energy family of companies operating the continent’s largest underground storage and pipeline system. Prior to his time in storage, he spent several years working as an MWD/LWD engineer for Schlumberger Drilling & Measurements with international placements in Saudi Arabia, Southeast Asia and Australia. He serves on the Southern Gas Association’s Underground Storage Committee, is a two-time chair of the SGA’s Underground Storage Roundtable, served as a team lead for the American Petroleum Institute’s review of underground storage recommended practices, and recently completed service as a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers International Board as the Regional Director of North America.

Mr. Evans has a B.S. in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering from West Virginia University and currently resides in the Charleston, West Virginia metro area.

Eugene Holubnyak recently joined the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources as a Director of the Hydrogen Energy Research Center. He previously served over a decade as a CCUS program lead at the Kansas Geological Survey and spent five years working on the Plains CO2 Reduction Partnership at EERC. He has been a Principal Investigator on over $40M of the Department of Energy and other sponsored research and development projects on CCUS, Hydrogen, and critical minerals.

Eugene is actively advising industry on CCUS and Hydrogen project development. He is working closely with Avalon International, Carbon Solutions LLC, and others.

Eugene has served on multiple professional committees, including the KS Induced Seismicity Task Force, the State Carbon Capture Work Group, and the Regional Carbon Capture Deployment Initiative. Until recently, he organized and led the KS CCUS Task Force and represented Kansas at the CO2 Transport Infrastructure MOU. He also regularly provides training and seminars for the Climate Tech and Carbon Capture & Storage Industry.

Eugene is also interested in space exploration and developments in Advanced Life Support Systems for space settlements. He is continuing research and publication activities in this area.

Mark Shuster is the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin, overseeing the Bureau’s Energy Research Division. Mark also leads the GeoH2 consortium, which conducts research on geological storage of hydrogen, hydrogen value chains, and novel subsurface concepts applied to hydrogen. Mark joined the Bureau in 2016 after retiring from Shell. In Mark’s 30 year career at Shell, he worked in upstream research and exploration as a Geologist, Manager, Vice President, and Executive Vice President in the US, the Netherlands, Australia, Oman, and the U.A.E. on projects across the globe. Mark is a member of SPE, AAPG, and GSA. He is a past president of the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies,former Vice-Chair of the American Geosciences Institute Foundation, and Trustee of the AAPG Foundation. Mark has a PhD in Geology from the University of Wyoming.