Nick Pinto is a Sr. Product Manager for Baker Hughes’s Methane Emission Measurement & Detection product group within the newly formed Climate Technology Solutions growth area.

In this role he is responsible for managing both the existing technology solutions as well as the development of new solutions aimed at addressing requirements in the rapidly evolving space of emissions management. He works closely with major operators in the Oil & Gas and other industrial verticals, as well as state, national, and global regulatory agencies, and industrial standards organizations to better assist operators with technology solutions enabling their implementation of effective emissions management programs.

Prior to his current role, Nick spent nearly 10 years with Emerson in a variety of global Product Management and Business Development roles focusing on industrial safety and gas detection, gas quality analysis, gas compositional analysis and chromatography, and continuous emissions monitoring gas analysis.

Nick is based in Houston, TX and a graduate of University of Houston-Downtown (B.S.) and Texas A&M University (M.S.). 

Brendan Smith is Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at SeekOps. Leading up to the formation of SeekOps, Brendan conducted research at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab where his focus was on laser spectroscopy applications, leveraging intelligent autonomous aerial systems for detection of methane leak anomalies. In 2017, Brendan spun-off his research from JPL and his graduate studies on unmanned systems conducted at the Mechatronics, Embedded Systems, and Automation (MESA) Lab at the University of California, Merced to tackle a large problem in oil & gas – methane emissions. SeekOps utilizes small unmanned aerial systems for effective and accurate gas emissions monitoring.

Brendan leads a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, scientists, and software developers in the commercialization and new applications of the miniature tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) trace-gas sensors in the energy industry. SeekOps works with major Oil & Gas and Renewable or Biogas and Landfill customers to provide rapid, comprehensive, and cost-effective drone-based methane emission measurements globally.

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 40 years 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 in 1975 and was the 2019-22 SPE Technical Director for Production & Facilities, as well as being a former SPE Distinguished Lecturer.

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.

Daniel Gysling, PhD., is the founder and CEO of CorVera, LLC, a company with a charter to improve the accuracy of Coriolis meters operating on bubbly liquids. Daniel’s technical expertise is in the areas of multiphase flow measurement and the dynamical interaction of fluid and structural systems, and he has served technical leadership roles in a variety of industries, including Chief Technology Officer at CiDRA Corporation, and subsequently at Expro Meters, Inc, and as a Technical Fellow of Aeromechanics at Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Corporation. Daniel was a primary inventor of SONAR-based flow measurement technology and holds numerous patents in the areas of flow measurement, gas turbines, acoustics, and aeroelasticity. Daniel holds BS in Aerospace Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Daniel Rodriguez has worked in the oil & gas multiphase flow measurement industry since 2005, developing and testing several technologies with two industry-leading vendors. He has deployed MPFMs within a wide range of production environments. Currently, he is the Engineering Manager for Weatherford’s Multiphase Flowmeter Technology.

He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has multiple publications on peer-reviewed journals, and has co-authored three patents. Dr. Rodriguez currently serves as a director of SPE’s Flow Measurement Technical Section and a Committee Member for API CPMA Chapters 20.3 and 22.7.

Luis Zerpa is an Associate Professor and Associate Department Head of the Petroleum Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines. Luis holds the Harry D. Campbell Endowed Chair, is the Director of the Center for Rock and Fluid Multiphysics, and is an affiliated faculty of the Center for Hydrate Research. He has B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering, and a Ph.D. degree in Petroleum Engineering. Luis has been working on reservoir engineering research for over 20 years and in hydrate research for over 15 years covering experimental and modeling work of hydrates in nature and in flow assurance. His research combines experimental and modeling evaluation of multiphysical properties of rocks, fluids, and their interactions with applications to flow assurance, petroleum reservoir engineering, geothermal, and CCUS. 

David Smith is the President and Principal Advisor for Oilfield Conformance Consulting LLC and an adjunct professor for Missouri Science and Technology (MS&T). Previously, he was the Global Conformance Engineering Advisor for either ConocoPhillips or Occidental Petroleum for more than 20 years. Prior to that, Mr. Smith was a Project Manager in Conformance Water Management for Halliburton. He also held several positions within ARCO that were associated with profile modification and sweep improvement. Mr. Smith has been an active member of SPE for more than 45 years. He was the 2014 Technical Program Chairman for the SPE EOR/IOR Conference in Tulsa, and a past Co-Chairman of the SPE EOR/IOR Technical Interest Group (TIG). He was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2019-2020. Mr. Smith holds a bachelor’s degree in Geology from Pacific Lutheran University and a Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering from Stanford University.

Shaya Movafaghian currently serves as Technology Director for Cetco Energy Services and has held 28 years of various technical and professional positions throughout the oil and gas industry. His current focus includes innovation, development and deployment of products and services for upstream oil and gas sector. His past experiences include global production and completions advisory role with Occidental Petroleum, in conventional and unconventional reservoirs, artificial lift, subsurface water shut off techniques and field development. Prior to this, he has held technical and functional management roles in research, technology development, technology acquisition and intellectual property management with Baker Hughes, Cameron Intl. Shaya holds an M.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering from University of Tulsa, OK as well as an MBA from Keller graduate school of management, Houston, TX.

Ron Nelson is a deepwater completion engineering consultant, based in British Columbia (BC), Canada. His career also included lead roles as a production engineer, subsea systems engineer, and as a deepwater well test specialist. 

Ron grew up in western Canada and earned his BSc in Petroleum Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in 1990. His career started in the US Gulf of Mexico and his first deepwater role was as a subsea systems engineer on BP’s Pompano Phase II in 1994. Since then, he’s worked on deepwater subsea projects and exploratory well tests in the Gulf of Mexico, West Africa, the North Sea, and the Mediterranean. He returned to Canada with his wife and infant daughter in 2002 and continued to work internationally, rotating for twelve years as a rig-site supervisor and in-country engineer before changing roles to support projects remotely from his home office. 

Ron ran his first intelligent completion in Equatorial Guinea in 2005 and became progressively more involved in intelligent well design and equipment performance validation. He works closely with ICV and gauge suppliers and is an active member of SEAFOM TSD-01, developing improved validation standards for subsea optical and electrical feed-thru connector systems. 

Ron is now the proud father of three engineering students. He’s been a member of SPE since 1988. He has written and presented papers on intelligent completions, water injection wells, sand control, and novel subsea tool deployment systems.

Karen Olson is a senior completions advisor for Well Data Labs and an independent consultant. She previously was technology director for Southwestern Energy Company. Olson has been a completion/ reservoir engineer for more than 37 years, starting her career as a fracturing engineer for The Western Company of North America. She has also worked at S.A. Holditch and Associates, Mobil Oil, and BP.

Bahman is Managing Director of “HYDRAFACT LIMITED” a Heriot-Watt spin-out Company formed in 2006 with Flow Assurance and PVT as its main area of activity. Hydrafact played a major role in Heriot-Watt University winning the Queen’s Anniversary Prizes in 2015. Bahman was the recipient of “Lifetime Achievement” from the 9th International Conference on Gas Hydrate, Denver, USA, in June 2017 for “Significant, Continuous Contributions to the Area of Hydrate Research, Practice, and/or Exploration, for a Period of Over Twenty Five Years”. Also, his research group work was recognised as one of the top 10 UK examples of the role of Chemical Engineering in Modern World by the IChemE (celebration on 15 December 2016 in Houses of Parliament in London). In November 2021 he won the Best Technical Presentation by IChemE, Aberdeen Branch, UK.

In June 2021 he formed Hydrafact Green Solutions Limited for more focus activities on the Human Health, Green Energy, Climate Change, Protecting the Environment and Earth. This new company will promote collaboration with other companies and government bodies, work as a platform for learning and increasing people awareness of Climate Change, Human Health, and look for options to minimize the negative effects of human activities on the Earth.

His teaching activities included Petroleum Engineering and Production Technology, as well as offering several short courses to the industry (including Flow Assurance and Gas Hydrates, PVT and Phase Behaviour of Reservoir Fluids, and Petroleum Engineering for other Disciplines, Climate Change, and Human Health). He taught Production Technology for 10 years to Heriot-Watt MSc students in Edinburgh and various Approved Learning Partners (ALP) Chemical Engineering in Russia, China, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, and Angola. He has published more than 480 papers and holds 13 patents mainly in gas hydrates and PVT. He was SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2004-2005 with his talk entitled, “Gas Hydrates: Friend or Foe?”. Bahman is a Professor at the Institute of GeoEnergy Engineering, Heriot-Watt University. He was member of the EPSRC (the UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Council) Peer Review College from 2006-Present and former member of editorial board of Journal of Chemical Engineering Research and Design (2009-12), and former-Deputy Head of Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Heriot-Watt University (Oct 2012-May 2014).

Bahman is now teaching Drilling/Production Engineering to FLAME students and PVT to Mature Field Course at Heriot-Watt University, in addition to his research projects. He also teaches Production Engineering at Technical University of Crete, Greece. He also, working at Hydrafact Limited and offering various courses

Bahman received his BSc in Chemical Engineering in 1984. He worked as lab instructor and lecturer for 8 years (including 4 years part-time) and 4 years as Production Engineering with a major Oil Company.

Bahman Tohidi joined Heriot-Watt University in early 1991 and graduated with a PhD in Petroleum Engineering in 1995 with his doctoral work on the “Phase Behaviour of Water-Hydrocarbon Systems and Gas Hydrates”. He started his employment at Heriot-Watt University in January 1994 working in both Hydrate and Reservoir Fluids research projects.

His research interests include gas hydrates, flow assurance (e.g., wax, asphaltene, salt, emulsion, foam, etc), PVT, phase behaviour and properties of reservoir fluids and H2/H2S/CO2-rich systems, production technology and EOR. He is officially leading the Hydrate, Flow Assurance and Phase Equilibria Research Group at Institute of GeoEnergy Engineering, Heriot-Watt University. He was also the Director of International Centre for Gas Hydrate Research and the Centre for Flow Assurance Research (C-FAR) at Institute of GeoEnergy Engineering, Heriot-Watt University with several projects on various aspects of gas hydrates and flow assurance, and phase behaviour and properties of reservoir fluids and H2/H2S/CO2-rich systems. His is a consultant to major oil and service companies.

Gizem Ersoy-Gokcal is currently Production Readiness Coordinator for ExxonMobil Guyana Business Unit. Gokcal has over 18 years of experience in multiphase flow research and oil/gas industry projects and operations. Last 10 years of professional experience has been focused on deep water greenfield and brownfield developments, identifying and assessing flow assurance challenges, optimizing and debottlenecking production and interfacing with subsea, topsides and chemical vendors.  She has been also recognized as a professional with advanced technical skills in ExxonMobil on flow assurance.

Gokcal previously served in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)’s Flow Assurance Forum in various roles and in the leadership team of Society of Petroleum Engineer (SPE)’ Flow Assurance Technical Section as a treasurer.

She holds master’s and doctorate degrees in petroleum engineering from the University of Tulsa on multiphase flow in pipes, and a bachelor’s degree in petroleum and natural gas engineering from Middle East Technical University in Turkey. She is also a licensed professional engineer in Texas.

David Fallon is the General Manager of Energy Transition for Chevron Australia located in Perth, Western Australia. Key responsibilities of the Energy Transition team include managing efforts to reduce the carbon intensity of Chevron Australia’s assets and working collaboratively with Chevron’s New Energies organisation to evaluate and progress new lower carbon business opportunities in Australia. David joined Chevron Australia in 2010 as a Facilities Engineer in the non-operated joint venture (NOJV) team before moving into a NOJV Facilities Team Lead role, where he acted as Chevron’s technical representative for the North West Shelf Project. He subsequently worked on Wheatstone as Production Planning Team Lead based in Perth followed by a site-based leadership role supporting the start-up of Trains 1 and 2. He also worked at Gorgon as Systems Manager. Prior to joining Chevron, David worked ina variety of operational and engineering roles for Woodside in both Karratha and Perth and Shell in Sydney. David holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical) from the University of Queensland.

Robert Root has 20 years of experience with Chevron in a variety of leadership and technical roles spanning exploration, appraisal, development, operations, CCS, and business planning in Australia and the USA. Currently Robert is the Subsurface Manager for Chevron Australia's producing assets with a remit that includes Gorgon CCS operations and remediation activities. Prior to joining Chevron Robert completed a PhD from the Australian School of Petroleum focusing on CO2 geosequestration in the Gippsland Basin of SE Australia.

John Kaldi is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Adelaide. He is the CO2CRC Distinguished Scientist and holds the South Australia State Chair in Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS). He is also an Adjunct Professor at Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Indonesia,and a Visiting Professor at Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) in Malaysia. John received his Bachelors and Master’s degrees in geology from Queens College, City University of New York, and a PhD in Geology from Cambridge University in the UK. His career includes 18 years in the Petroleum Industry in both technical and managerial roles with Shell, ARCO, (including ARCO Indonesia) & VICO. John has served as Distinguished Lecturer for various professional organisations, including the American Association of Petroleum Geoscientists (AAPG), the Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA), the Petroleum Exploration Association ofAustralia (PESA), and twice for the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). He has served as AAPG’s International Regions Vice President (2013 – 2015) and as AAPG Chair of the House of Delegates (2019 - 2020). Since 2015, he has been the chair of the International Steering Committee of the IEA Greenhouse Gas Division’s Education Program. Other roles he has held include Seals Program Manager for the Australian Petroleum Cooperative Research Centre (APCRC) and Chief Scientist for the CO2CRC. He has been the author and presenter of over 150 journal articles and technical conference papers.

Janeen Judah was the 2017 SPE President and is the incoming President of the SPE Foundation. She is now a member of the Board of Directors of Patterson-UTI Energy, after retiring from Chevron in 2018, as well as a director of Crestwood Energy Partners and Aethon Energy. She gives back through boards at University Lands, Texas A&M Engineering, Houston Audubon, Phi Mu Foundation and Dive Pirates Foundation.

Janeen has over 40 years of SPE leadership, starting as a student section officer, chairing both the Permian Basin and Gulf Coast Sections and 3 terms on the international Board, as Regional Director, Vice President Finance, and 2017 President. Janeen holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M, plus an MBA from UT Permian Basin and a JD from University of Houston.

Dr Alnuaim is a Saudi Aramco retiree with 38+ years of rounded engineering& management experience in the global Oil & Gas industry, Academia and Professional Societies. He led the implementation of Digitization, AI and Industrial Revolution, Intelligence Fields into Saudi Aramco Upstream Operations. Dr Alnuaim was the SPE 2019 President with a global theme to frame and redefine the global energy sustainability and replace the current awkward energy transition by more forward energy advancement concept,supporting the global economy, enhancing human lifestyle, improving people prosperity, enriching the global social development, reducing the global energy poverty, and protecting the environment through comprehensive accountable Oil & Gas industry De-Carbonization strategy and dialogue.

He completed Wharton Advanced Executive Management Program at the University of Pennsylvania and the Advanced Asian Business and Culture Program at Pennsylvania State University. Dr Alnuaim won several local, regional and international awards. He is currently serving in the Petroleum Engineering Departments’ advisory boards at King Fahad University of Petroleum & Minerals and King Saud University and the Engineering College advisory board at King Faisal University. Dr Alnuaim is a key figure in the Saudi and Middle East media and energy sectors where more than 300 Oil &Gas and energy related articles were published in Saudi newspapers in English and Arabic, addressing several strategic energy global issues such as Sustainability, Future Energy Landscape, Environment and Technology. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at the College of Geoscience and Petroleum Engineering of King Fahad University. His research interest is Smart Wells,Digital Fields, Well Performance and Energy Sustainability.

Tom Blasingame is a Professor and holder of the Robert L. Whiting Professorship in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University in College Station Texas. He holds B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Texas A&M — all in Petroleum Engineering. In teaching and research activities, he focuses on petrophysics, reservoir engineering, analysis/interpretation of well performance, exploitation of unconventional reservoirs, and technical mathematics. He also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Texas A&M. He served as Assistant Department Head (Graduate Programs) for the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M from 1997 to 2003, and has been recognized with several teaching and service awards from Texas A&M.

Blasingame is a Distinguished Member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (2000) and the recipient of the SPE Distinguished Service Award (2005), the SPE Uren Award (for technology contributions before age 45) (2006), the SPE Lucas Medal (SPE’s preeminent technical award) (2012), the SPE DeGolyer Distinguished Service Medal (2013), the SPE Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty (2014), and SPE Honorary Membership (2015). He has served as an SPE Distinguished Lecturer (2005-2006) and as the SPE Technical Director for Reservoir Description and Dynamics (2015-2018). He has prepared approximately 160 technical articles and has chaired numerous technical committees and technical meetings.

Patricia E. Carreras is the general director of the energy consulting company Blue Moon Strategies. She has more than 25 years of international experience leading and advising majors and independent energy companies on field development planning leveraging reservoir simulation. Additionally, she is a public speaker, mentor, and coach on topics of sustainable development, leadership, diversity and inclusion, and cross-cultural effectiveness. Carreras has worked based in the USA, Mexico and Argentina.

She is an active member of SPE, currently serving as 2022–2023 chair for the Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Committee. She is a past member of the SPE Business Management and Leadership Committee (BMLC). Carreras is one of the authors of the first-ever D&I survey launched by the BMLC in May 2020. She is the chair of the SPE Gulf Coast Section (GCS) Continuing Education Committee, which received the2021–2022 SPE GCS Outstanding Committee award under her tenure. Carreras received the 2020–2021 SPE GCS Exemplary Volunteer award.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Buenos Aires and a master’s degree in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M University. She successfully completed the Business Sustainability Management training from the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) in 2022.

Kory Holmes is a Technical Director for the Petroleum Services division of Core Laboratories in their Houston office. He graduated from the West Texas State University with a BS degree in geology in 1985 and began his career with C W Logging Services in Midland Texas as a wellsite Geologist. He joined Core Laboratories in 1991, and has held a variety of laboratory, supervisor and managerial positions, including Technical Manager for the Flow Studies Group. In 2010, Kory began helping John Dacy, Core Laboratories’ primary instructor, present Core Analysis seminars on the technology and applications of Advanced Rock Properties. As a Technical Director, he provides remote and on-site support to Core Lab’s worldwide network of rock properties laboratories on issues of technology transfer, testing protocols, data applications, and quality assurance.

S. Mark Ma is a Senior Consultant at Reservoir Description Division, Saudi Aramco and a SPE Reservoir Advisory Committee- Core Analysis Team member. Before joining Aramco in 2000, Mark worked at Exxon Production Research, Western Research Institute, Petroleum Recovery Research Center and Jianghan Petroleum Institute. Ma received his bachelor’s degree from China Petroleum University, Master’s degree and PhD from New Mexico Tech, all in petroleum engineering. A Petrophysics Journal Associated Editor and a JPT Editor, Mark was SPWLA Regional Director (2018-20) and chaired SPE FE Award Committee, SPE ATCE FE Committee, and IPTC Ed Week Committee. Dr Ma was awarded the 2010 SPE KSA Technical Contribution award, 2019 SPE MENA region FE award, 2020 SPE Distinguished Membership award, 2021 SPWLA Distinguished Service award, and 2022 SPWLA Distinguished Technical Achievement award.