We have a large faculty contingent with considerable expertise on many subjects. Together, their knowledge covers virtually all aspects of petroleum engineering research.
Sara Abedi
PhD/Assistant Professor
- Mechanics and physics of geomaterials
- Multiscale chemo-mechanical characterization and modeling
- Reservoir geomechanics
- Granular material failure and flow and granular physics
I. Yucel Akkutlu
PhD/Professor
- Shale gas and oil resource assessment and characterization
- CO2-enhanced shale gas and oil recovery
- Shale oil recovery using surfactants and microemulsions
- Digital rock physics and pore-network modeling
- Compositional reservoir flow simulation coupled with geomechanics
- Natural gas hydrates
Ibere Alves
PhD/Professor of Engineering Practice
- Gas and oil production
- Two-phase flow modeling
- Artificial lift
- Flow assurance
- Intelligent fields
- Deep water petroleum production
Maria A. Barrufet
PhD/Professor
- Reservoir confined fluid properties evaluation
- Reservoir near-critical fluids and compositional simulation, hydrocarbon characterization
- Equations of state (EOS) for multiphase equilibria
- Enhanced oil recovery: thermodynamics and transport phenomena applications
- Modeling CO2 storage and capture
- Multiphase flow, flow assurance and leak detection methods
Thomas A. Blasingame
PhD/Professor
- Unconventional reservoirs
- Production data analysis
- Pressure transient data analysis
- Petroleum reservoir engineering
- Technical mathematics
J.C. Cunha
PhD/Professor of Engineering Practice
- Drilling optimization
- Deepwater drilling
- Drill string mechanics
- Risk analysis applications to petroleum engineering processes
Akhil Datta-Gupta
PhD/University Distinguished Professor
- Rapid flow simulation techniques, reservoir optimization, large-scale parameter estimation via inverse methods, and uncertainty quantification and assessments
- Streamline simulation and applications
- Inverse modeling and multiscale data integration
- Geostatistics and stochastic reservoir characterization
- Modeling and scale-up of enhanced oil recovery
Fred Dupriest
BS/Professor of Engineering Practice
- Drilling performance workflows
- Drilling mechanics theory and practices
- Lost circulation theory and practices
- Stuck pipe avoidance
- Borehole quality management practices
- Advanced well control practices
Eduardo Gildin
PhD/Associate Professor
- Model reduction of large scale dynamical systems
- Control and optimization of large scale dynamical systems
- Reservoir modeling and simulation
- Closed-Loop Reservoir Management: Production Optimization, History Matching and Optimal Control
A. Rashid Hasan
PhD/Research Professor
- Wellbore heat transfer
- Transient transport processes
- Wellbore/Reservoir fluid flow
Berna Hascakir
PhD/Associate Professor
- Heavy oil and oil shale recovery with enhanced oil recovery methods
- Diagnostic studies on reservoir rock and fluids
- Produced water management
A. Daniel Hill
PhD/Regents Professor
- Production engineering
- Well completions
- Well stimulation
- Production logging
- Complex well performance (horizontal and multilateral wells)
John Killough
PhD/Professor
- Unconventional reservoir simulation/high-performance computing
- Coupled surface/subsurface reservoir models
- Upscaling and multiscale reservoir simulation
- Hysteresis and relative permeability
Jihoon Kim
PhD/Associate Professor
- Coupled flow and geomechanics in hydrate, shale and tight gas, and geothermal reservoirs
- Hydraulic fracturing, hydro-shearing, coupled geomechanic-geophysical modeling
- Reservoir simulation, computational geomechanics
Mike King
PhD/Professor
- 3D reservoir modeling and characterization
- Pressure and rate transient analysis for unconventional reservoirs
- Upscaling of geologic models for flow simulation
- Streamline-based simulation and flow analysis
Marcelo Laprea-Bigott
PhD/Professor of Engineering Practice
- Pressure and rate transient well analysis
- Reservoir engineering and production optimization
- Unconventional reservoirs and heavy oil recovery methods
W. John Lee
PhD/Regents Professor
- Oil and gas reserves
- Resources evaluation
- Production forecasting
- Unconventional resources
Jenn-Tai Liang
PhD/Professor
- Using nano drug delivery technologies for transport and controlled release of oilfield chemicals
- Hydraulic fracturing fluid cleanup
- Microbial enhanced oil recovery
- Scale, wax, and asphaltene inhibition
- In-depth conformance control
- CO2 injector for carbon sequestration and improved oil recovery
Heitor Lima
PhD/Professor of Engineering Practice
- Deepwater drilling
- Deepwater well design
- Advanced well control
Duane McVay
PhD/Professor
- Risk and uncertainty assessment
- Unconventional resource assessment
- Petroleum reservoir simulation
- Integrated reservoir characterization and management
Siddharth Misra
PhD/Associate Professor
- Data-driven modeling and machine learning
- Petrophysics and formation evaluation
- Subsurface characterization
- Sensors and sensing
- Inverse problems
George Moridis
PhD/Professor
- Numerical simulation and advanced numerical methods
- Unconventional gas resources
- Thermal operations
- Enhanced oil recovery processes
- High performance computing coupled (flow, thermal, geomechanical, geochemical, geophysical) processes
Nobuo Morita
PhD/Professor
- Geomechanics numerical modeling using the finite and boundary element methods for borehole, perforation, casing, and formation stabilities and hydraulic fracturing
- Geomechanics laboratory and field analyses
Hadi Nasrabadi
PhD/Associate Professor
- Compositional modeling of multiphase/multicomponent fluid flow in porous media
- Enhanced oil recovery and sequestration
- Phase behavior of reservoir fluids
- Modeling asphaltene precipitation in porous media
- Shale gas and oil recovery
Sam Noynaert
PhD/Associate Professor of Engineering practice
- Drilling performance
- Applied drilling research
- Horizontal/deviated drilling
- Automation of the drilling process
- Solutions to drilling-related problems in unconventional reservoirs
David S. Schechter
PhD/Professor
- Spraberry trend area
- Geological and petrophysical analysis
- Wettability determination and imbibition experiments
- Numerical modeling
- Reservoir simulation
- CO2 flooding and gas injection
George Voneiff
MS/Professor of Engineering Practice
- Applied petroleum economics in unconventional plays
- Statistical analysis of large data sets from unconventional formations
- Large-scale production data analysis using empirical techniques
Ruud Weijermars
PhD/Professor
- Petroleum economics and decision making
- Reservoir models and production forecasting
- Geothermal reservoir models
- Wellbore stresses and hydraulic fracturing
Kan Wu
PhD/Assistant Professor
- Hydraulic fracturing in unconventional reservoirs
- Coupled geomechanics and fluid flow modeling
- Well performance prediction and optimization
Ding Zhu
PhD/Professor
- General production engineering
- Well stimulation
- Complex well performance
- Intelligent completion technology