Chris Fair received his BS in Chemical Engineering (1994) and his MS in Petroleum Engineering (1997) from the University of Houston. During his time in school, he worked in various positions in the chemical industry and oil patch. These included roles in process operations, project/design engineering, PVT and fluid mechanics research, sales engineering, process control and instrumentation, downhole nuclear tool testing (both in the laboratory and in the field), and laboratory instruction in process control, technical writing, and chemical engineering practices (basically, how not to get “blow’d-up” in a chemical plant). In 1997, he joined Data Retrieval Corporation (the SPIDR folks). While there he worked on expanding the range & types of wells that could be effectively tested from the surface, and worked on increasing the company’s markets, both in the US and overseas. In 2005, he started Oilfield Data Services, Inc., a reservoir/production engineering consulting firm that specializes in Automated Reservoir and Production Engineering Surveillance.  Outside of his “day-job”, he sings with the Houston Symphony Chorus.

Mathias Carlsen is the general manager for Americas at Whitson, a company that develops an all-in-one, web-based, petroleum engineering platform named whitson+. After earning his MSc, Carlsen joined Whitson, and has been a key developer, conceptual driver, and product manager of whitson+ for unconventional reservoir model management. Through Whitson, Carlsen has also supervised and consulted on projects for more than 50 E&P companies. In addition, he researches and teaches industry courses on well performance, advanced pressure, volume, and temperature (PVT) studies, phase behavior, and gas-based enhanced oil recovery. Carlsen holds a MSc degree in petroleum engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and was a Fulbright Scholar at Stanford University.