Mark E Chiles

Mark E. Chiles is a senior executive with a proven record of success. He is the chief digital officer and senior vice president of digital for Hart Energy, the leading energy information provider, and a member of the Digital Officers Advisory Board for BPA Worldwide. Published on Forbes.com and a member of the Forbes Technology Council, Chiles is an executive with 18 years of progressive expertise in technology planning, implementation, product development, digital strategy, business operations, and big data. In these roles, Chiles has been responsible for the overall digital strategy and vision, driving complex software engineering initiatives and collaboration, including all facets of product development, infrastructure and architecture requirement to manage hundreds of users, with millions of visitors to the digital products and apps under his direction. Chiles is an entrepreneurial spirit who thrives on challenges and building products. He has also served his community as a volunteer firefighter for several years at Atascocita Volunteer Fire Department.

Chijioke Ejimuda

CJ is a hybrid engineer with rich domain expertise in reservoir and production engineering for both onshore and offshore assets. He earned his bachelor's degree in electrical electronics engineering and master's degree in petroleum engineering from University of Southern California. He has worked for ExxonMobil, Aera energy and technology startups in Silicon Beach. Presently, CJ is the Principal and Data Scientist at hybriData, a startup in Los Angeles, CA where they leverage AI, Big Data and IIoT to solve complex real-world energy problems with excitement.

Sunil Garg

Sunil Garg is the founder and CEO of dataVediK, an early stage startup specializing in consulting, big data, data analytics, machine learning and end-to-end data ecosystems for the oil & gas industry. Prior to this, he spent 20+ years establishing and growing data management, big data and analytics business for Schlumberger. Sunil is a sought-after speaker at various industry conferences and also conducts big data, machine learning and blockchain trainings for the industry, government and academia.

Yasin Hajizadeh

Yasin Hajizadeh is a senior program manager with Microsoft and manages machine learning and IoT products. Before joining Microsoft in 2018, he spent five years at Schlumberger as a data scientist in Houston and as a reservoir engineer in Calgary. Prior to Schlumberger, Yasin was an optimization and uncertainty management scientist with CMG. He has been an adjunct faculty member since 2013 in the Department of Computer Science at University of Calgary.

Yasin's current areas of interest are centered around molecular gastronomy, applied artificial intelligence, data visualization, stochastic optimization and uncertainty quantification. He holds a Ph.D. in petroleum engineering from Heriot Watt University (2011) and a Masters in Technology Management from Memorial University of Newfoundland (2016).

Detlef Hohl

Detlef Hohl holds a Master's degree in chemistry from Technical University of Munich and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Technical University of Aachen (Germany). Before joining Shell in 1997, he was senior scientist at the German National Laboratory Forschungszentrum Jülich.

Detlef started at Shell’s Bellaire Technology Center in seismic imaging research, then moved to Promise seismic inversion R&D and became R&D team leader for Quantitative Reservoir Management in 2006. From 2010–2017 he was General Manager Computation and Modeling where he led a project portfolio in data analytics, computational engineering and materials science, geoscience and petroleum engineering.

Detlef is adjunct professor at Rice University (Computational and Applied Math) and University of Houston, and visiting scholar at the UK National data science laboratory Alan Turing Institute. He held various temporary and visiting positions at NCSA, SISSA Trieste, NIST and Stanford University.

C. Susan Howes

C. Susan Howes, PE, PHR, is vice president of engineering at Subsurface Consultants & Associates, LLC, where she maintains technical quality standards for consultancy, recruitment, and training services. Howes began her career with Anadarko with engineering positions of increasing responsibility in Denver and Houston. In 2007, she joined Chevron as Horizons Program Manager and later moved into reservoir management. Howes has coauthored articles on ethics, uncertainty and risk management, and talent. She is a recipient of the SPE DeGolyer Distinguished Service Medal, is an SPE Distinguished Lecturer for 2019/20, and is an SPE Honorary Member. Howes holds a bachelor of science degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Texas.

Sanjay Paranji

Mr. Paranji was named Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Anadarko Petroleum in November 2018 after having served as Vice President of Anadarko's Advanced Analytics & Emerging Technologies (AAET) since November 2016. The AAET organization's objective is to enable digital transformation in Anadarko by harnessing technology, big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation to enhance the company's competitive advantage in the exploration and production space. He has 21 years of experience in the oil and natural gas industry, beginning with Schlumberger, where he first worked in the Middle East and East Africa and subsequently the U.K. and Norwegian North Sea sector.

Since joining Anadarko in 2001, he has held positions of increasing responsibility with cross-disciplinary and geographic breadth within Anadarko's onshore, deepwater, and international operations. His leadership positions include: Director, Unconventional Resources Best Practices for U.S. Onshore; General Manager, Enhanced Oil Recovery; Joint Venture and Commercial Manager for Algeria operations; Reserves and Planning Manager for International Operations; Reservoir Engineering Manager for Bohai Bay operations in Beijing, China.

Mr. Paranji holds a bachelor's degree in petroleum engineering, a Master of Science in petroleum engineering from the University of Tulsa, and an MBA from The Jones School of Business at Rice University, where he was a Jones Scholar award recipient.

Ross Philo

Ross Philo is chief executive officer of Energistics Consortium Inc, where he leads strategic planning, operations management, strategic alliances, and building an inclusive global user community while also facilitating a collaborative standards development environment. Ross attended Imperial College of Science and Technology in the United Kingdom where he earned a bachelor of science degree in engineering. Ross has over 35 years of experience in the oil and gas industry working for companies including Maersk Oil, Halliburton, and Schlumberger. Ross is a member of the Energistics Board of Directors and the Standards Leadership Council.

Samantha Siegel

Samantha Siegel was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She graduated from Carleton University in 2001 with a bachelor of science degree in geology and a minor in mathematics. She then continued her studies at the University of Calgary and obtained a Master of Science degree in geophysics in 2005. She started her career in Calgary, Alberta, working for Alberta Energy Company, EnCana, Trident Exploration, and Avenex as both a geologist and geophysicist from 2000 to 2013. In late 2013, she began working with Drillinginfo and shortly after moved to Houston. She continues to work for Drillinginfo as a technical consultant. Her interests include billiards, travel, hiking, and camping.

Nagaraj Srinivasan

Nagaraj Srinivasan is senior vice president of the Landmark and Halliburton Digital Solutions Division. Previously he served as vice president of the Landmark product service line and vice president of Landmark Research and Development.

Mr. Srinivasan joined Halliburton in 2011 following an 18-year career with Oracle, where he last served as vice president of Supply Chain Products. Prior to that, he held various leadership roles in Technology and Enterprise Applications.

Mr. Srinivasan has extensive experience in all aspects of research and development, including strategic planning, architectural design, operations, and mergers and acquisitions, as well as leading teams to develop and deliver enterprise-class software solutions across various vertical markets. He also holds several patents in technology and supply chain management. He currently serves on the advisory board for the Master of Science in Analytics at Texas A&M University and on the Global Business Advisory Board of the McCombs Center for Global Business, University of Texas, Austin.

Mr. Srinivasan holds a Bachelor of Technology from Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, a Master of Science from University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from University of California in Los Angeles.

Frederic Wasden

Dr. Frederic Wasden manages Shell’s Asset of the Future program, leading teams including data foundations and advance analytics, long range technology, and technology deployment through Shell’s iShale^TM program. Prior to this role, Fred was general manager for Shell’s Carmon Creek heavy oil development in Alberta, Canada. Fred received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Houston, and joined Shell in 1989. Fred’s career has included research and development assignments supporting Shell’s early deepwater host and subsea fields, followed by management assignments in oil shale and materials technology, corporate HSE, and deepwater development and operations.

Tailai Wen

Dr. Tailai Wen is a staff data scientist at Arundo Analytics based in Houston, Texas, where he works on physics-based and data-driven technologies and innovations in the industrial sectors, including oil and gas, renewable energy, transportation, etc. Prior to joining Arundo, Dr. Tailai worked at R&D branches of the QRI Group, Chevron, and IBM. He holds a Ph.D. in computational mathematics, a master of science degree in statistics from Stanford University, and a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Tsinghua University.

Shengyu Wu

Dr. Wu established YCOS Inc. and has served as president of the company since March 2016. Dr. Wu is leading the team in providing high-end geoscience services to the energy industry. He is particularly interested in the use of AI and Machine Learning technologies in the E&P geoscience workflows. He serves as the Sr. Geoscience Advisor to C&C Reservoirs in the applications of Human Intelligence in E&P decision processes.

Shengyu Wu earned Master and Ph.D. degrees in geology and geophysics during 1987–1993 under the guidance of professors Albert Bally and Peter Vail at Rice University. He has published several papers and proceedings on the evolution of salt and shale dominated slope tectonics and on sequence stratigraphy. Dr. Wu is a registered geoscientist in Texas and member of SEG and AAPG. His interest in machine learning started from his undergraduate thesis research on “Maximum Likelihood Classification of Vegetations Using Landsat Images” at Qinghua University in China in 1982.

Before joining YCOS Inc., Dr. Wu retired after working at C&C Reservoirs from 2003 to 2016 as director and vice president of geoscience. His main interest is developing the applications of analogs, especially oil and gas field analogs, structural analogs and basin analogs, in E&P workflow for exploration, development, and production. He actively interacts with more than 60 client companies worldwide to help maximize the efficiency of E&P decision process using accumulated E&P knowledge captured by C&C Reservoirs and by clients in Digital Analogs Knowledge System (DAKS), provided via the internet at www.ccreservoirs.com. Prior to C&C Reservoirs, he worked as a geoscientist and manager at various E&P companies, including president of GeoSynthesis International, vice president of exploration in TOTAL's U.S. division, senior explorationist at Anschutz Exploration, and senior geophysicist and supervisor at the Geophysical Research Institute of BGP-CNPC.  He has great interest in structural geology, sequence stratigraphy, exploration, reservoir performance optimization, seismic data processing and artificial intelligence.  He is also particularly interested in fine art.

Ehsan Naeini

Ehsan is a technical director with more than 12 years industry experience, particularly in advanced analytics and machine learning, 3D/4D seismic processing, well tie and inversion.

He has an MSc and PhD in geophysics (exploration seismology) and a B.Sc. in physics. While studying for his PhD, Ehsan was a lecturer in geophysics at the University of Isfahan. Ehsan then joined CGG in London as a senior research geophysicist, developing commercial algorithms for 3D/4D seismic processing. He then moved to Aberdeen with CGG to head up the Research & Technology Team in the BP Dedicated Processing Centre. Ehsan joined Ikon Science in May 2012. He is currently the research and innovation technical director, responsible for the incorporation of latest techniques and developments in the area of reservoir characterisation into the Ikon Science's RokDoc platform. He is also responsible for academic affairs at Ikon Science.

Hiren Maniar

Hiren Maniar is a principal data scientist at Schlumberger. He brings over two decades of interdisciplinary research experience in data analytics, mathematical analysis, numerical modeling, inverse problems, and signal processing. He has worked with problems in business, finance, medical, and engineering. His data analytics and machine-learning experiences span over more than a decade. He has developed data-driven applications ranging from neuroscience to cancer; and geosciences to banking and retail. Some noteworthy machine-learning applications include: seismic fault detection, top of salt detection, log correlations, petrophysical parameter estimation, drilling ROP, breast cancer prediction, default risks for sub-prime credit-card applicants, and customer disengagement prediction at multinational banks.

In addition to his research endeavors, he has worked on the early development of a data-analysis platform for neural signal processing of large electroencephalogram/magnetoencephalogram data. As a researcher at Cold Spring Harbor Labs (NY) he worked on inverse problems for neural activity localization. At the outset of his corporate career he was with Chevron (San Ramon, CA) as a scientist in the Floating Systems Team advising on offshore hydrodynamics. Prior to his scientific career, he had sailed the oceans for a few years as ship engineer.

Hiren received a PhD in hydrodynamics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and an MS in civil engineering from University of Wisconsin (Madison).

Bill Abriel

William L. (Bill) Abriel is the past president of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG). Bill worked for 38 years at Chevron in the international application of new technology to active projects. Examples are the industry’s first deployment of an integrated team of geology, geophysics and engineering for production management, and Chevron’s commercial development and deployment of subsalt seismic processing and interpretation in the Gulf of Mexico. Bill has been the principle geophysicist for Chevron in many geological areas with the responsibility to advance technology, integrate business results, and negotiate with partners and governments. His experience extends to managing projects in the Gulf of Mexico, US Appalachians, US rift basins, West Texas, California offshore, Venezuela, Brazil, North Sea, Black Sea, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, China, Offshore Siberia, and Australia. During this time, Bill authored many articles and chapters in SEG and AAPG publications, organized technical conferences and spoke in many venues about the integrated business use of applied geophysics.

As a strong advocate of professional societies, Abriel has participated in a variety of SEG activities since helping found the Penn State SEG chapter at university in 1977 where he graduated in 1978 with a BS in geosciences and an MS in geophysics. During his time with SEG, he has been an assistant editor for GEOPHYSICS, TLE and Interpretation, served on numerous SEG committees, including Development, Membership, Research, Global Affairs, and Distinguished Lecturer, was the SEG Spring Distinguished Lecturer in 2004, and the SEG/EAGE Distinguished Instructor in 2008. Abriel is a founder and twice board chair of a nonprofit research company, the SEG Advanced Modeling Corporation (SEAM). He was awarded SEG life membership in 2007, and served as president in 2016-2017.

Sashi Gunturu

Sashi Gunturu is the founder and CEO of Petrabytes Corp, which helps oil and gas companies optimize drilling and production operations with a cloud and edge computing workbench – Skygridz™. Prior to Petrabytes Corp, Sashi worked as an independent project consultant with Reservoir Technology Group at Baker Hughes and in different roles with Geomechanics International including upstream software development and consulting in the areas of well planning and geomechanics.

Sashi received his MS in petroleum engineering and MS in computer science from University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA and Bachelor of Technology in chemical engineering from Andhra University, India. Sashi is a member of AAPG, Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, Open Houston, and TiE Houston chapter.

Tyler Chessman

Tyler Chessman is a technology-solutions professional with Microsoft, helping customers evaluate and adopt Microsoft's business intelligence (BI) and advanced analytics platform. He’s been a frequent author/trainer for SQL Pro, and is the author of the book Understanding the United States Debt.  Prior to joining Microsoft, Tyler spent several years as a consultant implementing financial, analytical, and sales force automation solutions.

Mrinal Sen

Mrinal K. Sen is a professor of Geophysics and holder of Jackson Chair in Applied Seismology at the Department of Geological Sciences and concurrently serves as the interim director of the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin. During 2013 and 2014, Mrinal served as the director of the National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad, India. He received his M.Sc degree from IIT(ISM) Dhanbad and PhD from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA.

Mrinal is known internationally for his work on theoretical and computational seismology, and geophysical inversion. Mrinal has received many awards, including the Honorary membership in the Society of Exploration Geophysicists “for extraordinary contributions as a geophysicist, educator and author” ,the ‘Joseph C. Walter award for research excellence’, the ‘distinguished educator award’ at the University of Texas, Decentennial Gold Medal of the Indian Geophysical Union, the Hari Narayan Award of the Geological Society of India, and the distinguished alumnus award from ISM and University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is the recipient of 2018 Virgil Kauffman gold medal of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists for making significant advancement in the sciences of exploration geophysics in the last five years.

Arsh Quadir

Arsh Quadir is the founder and CEO of Maverick Labs. Arsh graduated from Texas A&M University with a BS in Aerospace Engineering. He is known for rapidly accelerating the growth of several organizations at Texas A&M, such as the Buoyant Flight Laboratory (BFL). During Arsh's presidency at the BFL, the lab became an internationally operating organization serving the largest TV network in Japan. Once establishing the foundation of the BFL, Arsh transferred into his career specialization of rocket propulsion and led the founding team of the Texas A&M Rocket Engine Development Program (TAMU RED) to help design and prototype the first full scale 3-D printed rocket engine. Despite the many successes in various fields of aerospace, the desire of working on something much larger led him to discovering the automation industry driven by drones and data. In 2018 with the creation of Maverick Labs, Arsh took his collective experience in aerospace to become a wing-man for all farmers. 

Judson Jacobs

Judson Jacobs is a Managing Director with IHS Markits’s upstream group, leading its Technology practice.  In this role he studies the tactical applications and strategic implications of oilfield and digital technologies across E&P and broader energy sectors.

Mr. Jacobs was previously a management consultant with the Mitchell Madison Group, serving the energy sector. His oil and gas industry experience includes senior field and corporate engineering roles with Schlumberger, and exploration roles with Anadarko in its international division.

Judson holds a BSE degree in civil engineering from Princeton University and an MS degree in geology from Stanford University.

Matt Morris

Matt Morris is a geophysical advisor in Anadarko’s Advanced Analytics and Emerging Technologies team.  He holds a Master’s degree in geophysics from The University of Texas at Austin and a BSc in geophysics from Missouri University of Science & Tech.  During his 16 years in industry, Matt has worked exploration and development projects across the US Lower 48, the Gulf of Mexico, and most recently in offshore Mozambique. 

In recent years, Matt has served on Anadarko’s risk assurance teams that oversee a global portfolio of conventional and unconventional exploration prospects. Matt provided oversight for risk and uncertainty assessment, and developed a suite of Bayesian and frequentist statistical tools to aid in the assessment of exploration portfolios. Today, he’s currently working alongside petrotechnical professionals and data scientists to integrate machine learning techniques into Anadarko’s seismic interpretation workflows. 

Hugh Winkler

Hugh Winkler is cofounder and CEO of Factor Technology. After graduating from Georgia Tech with a BS in applied physics, he was a field engineer at Schlumberger, and subsequently obtained his MA in geophysics from the University of Texas at Austin, where he worked on inverse problem theory. He built seismic processing code at Parallel Geosciences, and co-developed the SeisVision interpretation system, now part of the GeoGraphix suite. He later founded Wellstorm, a drilling data exchange company acquired in 2012 by Drilling Info. He served as director of research at Drilling Info until founding Factor Technology in 2017.

Yang Xue

Yang Xue is a research geophysicist at Areal Surveillance Team in Shell Technology Center Houston. She is developing and applying advanced data analytics tool (i.e. ML, Bayesian Inversion) for fit-for-purpose 4D QI and multi-disciplinary data integration for improved well reservoir management. She received her Dipl.-Ing. in aerospace engineering from the University of Stuttgart and PhD in geophysics from the University of Texas at Austin.

Daniel Hunt

Daniel Hunt is an upstream digital advisor within the Digital Innovation and Acceleration Office for Chevron. He is responsible for partnering the businesses and functions to accelerate digital transformation.

Daniel’s career with Chevron has led him to assignments in each of their four upstream operating companies and the technology company, providing him with a wide range of experiences throughout their global business. He has enjoyed various roles across our offshore, land, deepwater, LNG, heavy oil and unconventional assets positioning him well for his role as an upstream advisor. Most recently, he led the subsurface characterization and appraisal of new short-cycle, high-return opportunity in the Central Permian basin. 

Daniel received an MSc in petroleum engineering and a BEng in mechanical engineering from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. Prior to studying, he served as an officer in the British Army and as a humanitarian aid worker during the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He commenced his career with Chevron working in the North Sea as a completion engineer.

Outside of work Daniel enjoys golf, hiking, running, traveling, and cooking. He lives in Houston, Texas, with his wife Sandy, daughters Emily (11), Laila (9) and their dog Oscar.

David Melancon

David has been with Equinor for the past two years primarily as an automation specialist and recently started a new role as Project Manager of Sub Surface Data Platform for onshore. Before joining Equinor, David was a team leader at Apple and Drilling Info and spent eight years as an Austin public educator. David holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin in geography, a Master’s degree from Texas State University in applied geography, and is a candidate in Villanova’s School of Business Master of Science in Analytics program.

Chengbo Li

Chengbo Li is a staff geophysicist for ConocoPhillips. He joined ConocoPhillips in 2011 as a research geophysicist in the Technology and Subsurface Organization. His recent work focuses on geophysical applications of compressive sensing, including seismic data reconstruction, optimal survey design, and simultaneous source acquisition for both marine and land. Now he also leads the effort in developing machine learning solutions for seismic processing.

Li co-invented ConocoPhillips’ proprietary technology---Compressive Seismic Imaging (CSI). The technology received the SPIRIT of Performance Award in Innovation in 2016, the SPIRIT of Performance Award in Technology Champion in 2018, and the OTC Asia Spotlight on New Technology Award in 2018. His paper on CSI was selected to receive the award for Best Paper in The Leading Edge in 2017. He also received the SPIRIT of Performance Award in Outstanding Early Career Technologist in 2019.

Li is a member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists and the Geophysical Society of Houston. Li earned a PhD in Computational and applied mathematics from Rice University in 2011.

Franz X. Deimbacher

Franz X. Deimbacher has over 25 years oil/gas industry experience and has been with Amazon Web Services since 2017 where he serves as the Worldwide Technical Leader for Energy based in Houston, TX.

Previously, Deimbacher was at IHSMarkit, the world’s leading provider of critical information, analytics, and expertise for major industries and markets worldwide. As the VP Energy he was responsible for the technical and business transformation of IHSMarkit as well as innovation.

Before that, Deimbacher was with Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield technology company, where he served in senior technical, operational, and management roles in Europe, Africa, Middle East, Russia, and the US.

Deimbacher has also worked in several disruptive technology startup companies, and he is currently the VP of the Board of the Society of High-Performance Computing Professionals.

Deimbacher has an MSc in Petroleum Engineering and a PhD in reservoir engineering, both from the Mining University Leoben, Austria. He has over 40 professional publications and he holds several patents.

Diane Borska

Diane Borska has 30 years of experience as a strategy consultant for a range of leading global companies. As Fuld + Company’s President and CEO, she has led high performing teams through many engagements and advised clients on issues such as technology development and investment, new market entry, mergers and acquisitions, and diversification. She has also facilitated numerous strategy workshops for clients. Her specific areas of expertise include work in the energy, agriculture, industrial goods, and information technology sectors. Diane is known as a consulting leader and has been acknowledged as a 2017 Global Leader in Consulting by Consulting Magazine and was recently cited as a “Trailblazer” in Boston Voyager Magazine.

Prior to Fuld + Company, Diane worked as a consultant to the energy and utilities industry addressing issues such as smart grid investment, competitive retail strategies, and industry consolidation and convergence. She also worked as a mechanical engineer for one of the industry’s leading EPC firms, supporting multi-billion-dollar construction projects.

Diane has a BS in mechanical engineering from Cornell University and lives with her family in Brookline.

John de Wardt

John de Wardt, CEng, FIMechE, Distinguished Member SPE is President and founder of DE WARDT AND COMPANY INC, a management consulting company focused on performance improvement in the upstream oil and gas industry. De Wardt’s work experience includes 42 years worldwide engineering, management, and consulting with oil companies, drilling contractors, service companies and manufacturers. De Wardt is program manager for a cross industry initiative developing a Drilling Systems Automation Roadmap, board member of SPE DSATS, advisor to IADC DDRPlus™, and lecturer/external PhD advisor at Colorado School of Mines. He has published 27 SPE papers on subjects ranging from borehole surveying to drilling systems automation.

Brendon Hall

Brendon is Director, Energy Solutions, at Enthought. With more than 11 years of industry experience, Brendon is a recognized leader in machine learning who understands the science of oil and gas exploration. His experience as a computational geologist at ExxonMobil and as a research geophysicist at ION Geophysical add to his background in software development to enable cross-functional discussions that drive business value across oil and gas organizations. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of California Santa Barbara, and a B.Eng. in mechanical engineering as well as BSc in computer science from Western University in Canada.

Ryan Swindeman

Ryan is Scientific Software Developer, Energy Solutions, at Enthought.

His background is in geophysics with expertise in quantitative interpretation and seismic processing. Prior to joining Enthought, Ryan worked in the oil and gas industry as an exploration geophysicist with prospect maturation experience and used Python for rock-physics forward modeling and inversion. His graduate research in computational seismology explored iterative seismic data regularization and inversion. Ryan holds an MS in geophysics from the University of Texas and a BS in physics from the University of Illinois.

Ben Lasscock

Ben is Technical Lead, Energy Solutions, at Enthought. He brings to Enthought a depth of knowledge and experience in geophysics and geoscience, and a passion for solving problems in the oil and gas industry. Before joining Enthought, Ben served as a senior geophysicist for Geokinetics Inc., where he added machine learning methods to analysis of azimuthal attributes, and focused on optimizing HPC for depth and imaging applications. He holds a PhD and a BSc in theoretical physics as well as a BSc in physics and theoretical physics from the University of Adelaide.

Charlie Cosad

Charlie is VP, Energy Solutions, at Enthought. He comes to Enthought after a highly successful 38-year career at Schlumberger. At Schlumberger, he worked in a variety of businesses around the world. Other experience includes a 4-year secondment to BP as drilling manager, IT to develop and implement a strategy for remote and real-time operations, and lead for marketing and brand for the Smith and Cameron acquisitions. He holds an MSc in aerospace and mechanical sciences from Princeton University and a BSc in mechanical mngineering from Syracuse University.

Chetan Desai

Chetan Desai is VP Digital Technologies for Schlumberger, the world's leading provider of technology for reservoir characterization, drilling, production, and processing to the oil and gas industry. In this role, he is shaping the digital technology strategy for the company and leads the global team responsible for defining, developing and deploying an enterprise-grade digital platform for the transformation of exploration and production. Prior to his current role, Desai led the global industrial IoT efforts for Schlumberger leading to the deployment of fit-for-purpose wellsite digitization solutions. Earlier in his tenure at the company, Desai led the wireline technology portfolio and harsh environment electronics technology organization.

Having spent 15+ years of his early career in the Silicon Valley, with companies in the semiconductor, capital equipment and MEMS industries, Desai has developed a keen interest in integrated systems enabled by convergence of hardware and software; and platform- based solutions and business models.

Mr. Desai holds an MS in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University and a BS in electrical engineering from Gujarat University in India.

Tom Smith

Tom Smith, the founder of Seismic Micro-Technology (SMT) and creator of the KINGDOM Software Suite, is the president and CEO of Geophysical Insights (geoinsights.com), where he leads a team of  geophysicists, geologists, and computer scientists in developing machine learning technologies for interpretation. Tom received a BS and MS degree in geology from Iowa State University, and a PhD in geophysics from the University of Houston. Over a 50-year career, Tom has been recognized numerous times for his accomplishments in pioneering the science of geophysics. The Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) recognized his work with the SEG Enterprise Award in 2000, and in 2010, the Geophysical Society of Houston (GSH) awarded him an honorary membership. Iowa State University (ISU) recognized Smith’s accomplished career with the Distinguished Alumnus Lecturer Award in 1996, the Citation of Merit for National and International Recognition in 2002, and the highest alumni honor in 2015, the Distinguished Alumni Award. The University of Houston College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics recognized Smith with the 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Jose Silva

Jose is the lead business strategist in Anadarko Petroleum’s Advanced Analytics and Emerging Technology (AAET) team responsible for identifying new trends that could affect the way we develop and explore conventional and unconventional reservoirs in the oil & gas industry, specifically in the advanced analytics domain and emerging technologies from any industry. In partnering with companies, his main goal is to bridge the gap between data science and physics models, aiming towards better data-driven decisions.

Cindy Cummings

Cindy Cummings has over 35 years of work experience in the oil and gas industry in areas of exploration, development, production, and information management. Cindy worked for Conoco, IHS, Energy IQ and is currently in Exploration Technical Services at Repsol in the Woodlands, Texas.  Cindy has authored and presented papers on oil and gas data management, data governance, technology, and various other topics over the years at PNEC, PPDM, and ARMA conferences. Cindy is on the PPDM Houston Leadership Team and also participates in several PPDM work groups.  Cindy is also a certified project manager which helps to keep the many data management strategies, programs, and projects synchronized and moving forward in this ever-changing industry.  Currently, she is working on the program management team of a Repsol global data platform program as well as the leader of the Blockchain Seismic Entitlements initiative for the Oil and Gas Blockchain Consortium.

Daniel J. Piette

Dan Piette is currently the CEO of Bluware, a technology company dedicated to moving geotechnical data to the cloud, and enabling digital transformation through artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning. Formerly a board member of Petroleum Geo-Services (a publicly-traded marine seismic acquisition company.) Previously, Mr. Piette was president, CEO, and executive chairman of TerraSpark Geociences, a software company that offered technology for the interpretation of seismic data; President, CEO, and a board member of Object Reservoir; and president and CEO of OpenSpirit Corporation. Each of those companies was dedicated to delivering new technology to the oil and gas industry, and each was successfully sold to various oil field service or horizontal software companies. After receiving his BSc with honors in mining engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980, he held several executive management positions in the oil and gas industry, including general manager postings in Singapore and Caracas. Mr. Piette was a key employee of Landmark Graphics when they introduced new 3D seismic interpretation tools to the upstream oil and gas industry. Additionally, Mr. Piette was instrumental in the introduction of various new technologies to the industry, from gravity gradient data to computer generated mapping and economic analysis. He started his career with Exxon Minerals, working in both hard rock and oil shale projects.

Lindsay Miller

Lindsay Miller is senior director of data science at Kelvin, Inc, where she leads an interdisciplinary team of data scientists, subject matter experts, and controls engineers in developing intelligent control systems informed by data science for industrial applications. Prior to joining Kelvin, she spent five years leading materials science R&D, process engineering, and system integration for thermoelectric generators to provide off-grid power in remote locations, including oil and gas sites. Lindsay has 12 years of experience in the energy sector, focused on energy conversion, sensor networks, and data. She has also co-authored over a dozen academic papers, several patents, and written a book chapter. She holds a PhD and MS degree from University of California, Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree from Case Western Reserve University, all in mechanical engineering.

Leslie Malone

Leslie Malone graduated with a BS in petroleum engineering from Texas Tech University. She began her career with ARCO Oil and Gas as facilities/operations engineer in Hobbs, New Mexico and Midland, Texas. Leslie took a break from the oil and gas industry to raise a family and re-entered the industry as production/operations engineer and worked for Vernon E. Faulconer, Inc. in Tyler, Texas and Murphy Exploration in Houston. Leslie has been the Area Production Manager – Comanche Asset for Sanchez Oil and Gas Corporation for the past two years.

Sergey Fomel

Sergey Fomel is Wallace E. Pratt Professor of Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin, with a joint appointment between the Bureau of Economic Geology and the Department of Geological Sciences. He is co-founder and director of the Texas Consortium for Computational Seismology (TCCS). Sergey is also the creator and project manager of the Madagascar open-source software package for geophysical data analysis. He received a PhD in geophysics from Stanford University in 2001. For his contributions to exploration geophysics, Sergey has been recognized with a number of professional awards, including SEG’s J. Clarence Karcher Award in 2001 and the EAGE Conrad Schlumberger Award in 2011. He currently serves as SEG's Vice President of Publications.

Wenyi Hu

Wenyi Hu received his PhD degree in electrical engineering from Duke University, Durham, NC, USA, in 2005. From 2005 to 2009, he was a research scientist at Schlumberger-Doll Research. He joined ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company in 2009 and worked there as a senior research specialist. Since March 2013, he has been with Advanced Geophysical Technology, Inc. as the vice president of research. His current work is focused on a variety of R&D projects on tackling large-scale forward and inverse problems for the oil and gas industry. His active research spans different areas of applied geophysics for petroleum exploration and production, including seismic earth imaging and modeling, full waveform inversion (FWI), velocity model building, electromagnetics modeling & inversion, signal processing, and deep learning and data analytics. He has more than 40 technical publications and has six US patents/patent applications.

Upendra K. Tiwari

Upendra K. Tiwari is a staff geophysicist in Exploration, Subsurface & Other International (ESOI) organization for ConocoPhillips in Houston, Texas. He is subject matter expert in time-lapse reservoir monitoring and machine learning applications for reservoir characterization. Upendra obtained his PhD in geophysics from University of Texas at Dallas, and MS (geophysics) and BS (physics) degrees from Banaras Hindu University, India. After graduation, Upendra joined ExxonMobil as exploration geophysicist (2007-2013). Along with his co authors, Upendra received the “2010 Honorable Mention for Best Paper at SEG Annual Meeting”. His research interests include application of machine learning for quantitative reservoir characterization, seismic modeling and inversion and in seismic reservoir surveillance.

Aron Hallquist

Aron Hallquist is the planning and production technical marketing manager for Schlumberger Software Integrated Solutions, based in London, UK. Aron’s primary focus is on defining, delivering, and communicating solutions around production data acquisition, surveillance, analysis, and optimization.

Prior to his current role, Aron was the software portfolio manager for production operations in Pune, India, and has held a variety of positions within Schlumberger focused on training, consulting, solutions deployment, business development, and product development.

As part of his solutions development experience, Aron was responsible for developing the Avocet Gas Lift Manager, an integrated solution for maintaining hydraulic well models, performing gas lift diagnostics, and optimizing asset production while managing finite lift gas supplies and other field constraints.

Prior to joining Schlumberger, Aron spent three years with BJ Services as a senior field engineer focused on underbalanced drilling, cementing, acidizing, and hydraulic fracturing operations in North Dakota, Colorado, and South Texas.

Aron holds a degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Texas, Austin, and has been awarded a US patent for production operations simulation modelling.

David Castiñeira

David Castiñeira, Chief Technology Officer at QRI, has more than 10 years of experience in the O&G industry where he held different engineering and leadership positions within QRI (and Shell before that). He holds a PhD in chemical engineering from UT Austin and a MSc. in computational science and engineering from Harvard University. Castiñeira also pursued postdoctoral research at MIT to investigate new computational models for coupled fluid flow and geomechanics using machine learning techniques (with direct applications to earthquake predictions and Alzheimer disease evaluations). Before joining QRI, David worked for the R&D department at Shell International Exploration and Production Inc., where he developed and applied new quantitative analytical methods for reservoir management. During his career, he has worked on multidisciplinary, multinational teams of engineers and geophysicists who added value to different geologically complex fields in the US, Mexico, Kuwait, China, Nigeria, Malaysia, and North Sea.

Ulisses T. Mello

Ulisses T. Mello is the director of IBM Research – Brazil with sites in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Ulisses is also an IBM global research executive for the chemicals and petroleum Industry sector. He holds a PhD (1994) and MA (1992) in geology from Columbia University, a MSc in geology from Federal University of Ouro Preto (1987), and BSc (1983) in geology from University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. His research interests are large-scale basin modeling, hydrogeological modeling, digital oil fields, integrated operation optimization, data assimilation, unstructured meshing, parallel computing, advanced water management, and computational geosciences.

Dariusz Piotrowski

Dariusz Piotrowski, Director, Global AI Solutions, IBM Natural Resources Industry Platform, leads the strategy and development of AI (Artificial Intelligence) solutions in natural resources (oil, gas, and mining). Dariusz specializes in large transformational projects focused on optimization, machine learning, and cognitive analytics. Dariusz has more than 20 years of technology and consulting experience working with senior leaders within some of the world's largest natural resources companies to help them realize business value through fusing together advanced technologies, data science, applied R&D, and agile methodologies and practices to transform business processes and performance. Currently, Dariusz leads the global natural resources AI development team within IBM Industry Platforms. Dariusz holds an architecture and civil engineering degree from Warsaw University of Technology in Poland and an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business in Western Ontario.

Andrew Aubrey

Andrew Aubrey is CEO and co-founder of SeekOps Inc. SeekOps provides sensor sales and natural gas leak detection services to the energy sector using Unmanned Aerial Systems. Andrew worked in the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Instruments Division for nine years where he was JPL Applied Sciences program manager and manager within the JPL Commercial Programs Office. In this role, Andrew worked with oil and gas partner companies to identify and mature NASA robotics and sensor technologies for upstream and downstream oil and gas applications.

Weichang Li

Weichang Li is the machine learning group head at Aramco’s Houston Research Center (HRC). His research involves developing machine learning and signal processing algorithms for geoscience/petroleum applications. Prior to Aramco HRC, he led the machine learning team at ExxonMobil’s Corporate Strategic Research from 2011-2014. Weichang has co-organized 2018 SEG machine learning workshop, 2018 SIAM data mining workshop in geoscience applications, and has presented invited talks at SEG, IMA, Nvidia GTC on related topics, and published extensively at machine learning and signal processing conferences such as ICML, NIPS, KDD and ICASSP. Weichang obtained his MSc (dual) in electrical engineering and computer sciences, and ocean engineering (2002), and PhD in electrical and oceanographic engineering (2006), both from MIT.

Eirik Larsen

Dr. Eirik Larsen is cofounder and CEO of Earth Science Analytics, a company focusing on the commercial application of AI in petroleum geoscience (earthanalytics.ai). He has 19 years’ experience from the E&P industry. He has held various technical and managerial roles in oil companies and consultancy firms including Statoil, Rocksource, and Geokonsulentene. He has experience from research, exploration, field development, and production on the NCS as well as internationally. He holds a PhD in Petroleum Geology from the University of Bergen and is now laser focused on implementation of AI in petroleum geoscience.

Phillip Jong

Phillip Jong worked at Shell as manager data foundation design. He has worked in many areas of subsurface from seismic processing to reservoir simulation. Currently he is the chairman of the Open Subsurface Data Universe forum of the Open Group. His interest is to transform the subsurface data landscape to drive and accelerate the digital journey

Adrian Newton

Adrian Newton is the Schlumberger Marketing Manager for Drilling Software. Since joining Schlumberger in 1997 Adrian has held several technical and management positions in the North Sea and the Middle East. Adrian has significant experience working in geomechanics, drilling optimisation, formation evaluation while drilling and geosteering operations. Recent roles have included managing an integrated drilling engineering center and now marketing Schlumberger next generation drilling technology.
Adrian holds BSc and MSc Oceanography degrees from Southampton and Texas A&M University.

John Hudson

John Hudson currently leads a team focused on supporting transformation of subsurface and wells related workflows for Shell’s Americas EP & Integrated Gas businesses. He has more than 25 years of experience in subsurface software, flow assurance, production system design and technology development in technical and managerial positions in Europe and North America. His activities have included lead roles in the development of an integrated reservoir and IPSM simulator and a model-based, cloud deployed, real-time operational support systems. John holds a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois. He serves on the JPT Editorial Committee and can be reached at www.linkedin.com/in/hudsonjohnd.

Kenton Prindle

Kenton is a senior solutions engineer at Google, and a subject matter expert for oil and gas (geophysics), machine learning for geophysics and HPC/cloud computing.  In this role, he is responsible for building/deploying engineering solutions for Google Cloud Platform centered around geophysics and machine learning/AI for customers. He strives to apply current and upcoming AI/ML technologies to materialize proofs of concept and drive long-term transformations.
Prior to his current role, Kenton spent 10 years in the oil and gas industry, responsible for emerging technologies as a lead research geophysicist at Woodside Energy (Perth, Australia, 5 years), and as a senior geophysicist in technology at Hess Corporation (Houston, 5 years). 

Kenton has a strong background in geophysics, HPC, cloud computing and data science for optimizing geophysical inversions/workflows for processing and subsurface characterization. He led one of the first scale independent pilot cloud programs in his company (perhaps in industry, 2013) by porting Full Waveform Inversion, RTM and forward modeling codes to the cloud in order to enable large scale data science workflows and advanced algorithms for determining subsurface earth model properties from multi-dimensional and multi-scale data. As a result, inversion of large data sets, leveraging machine learning and analytics of multiple data types for subsurface properties was made possible.

Kenton is a long-time rock climber and a proud father of two smart, and very energetic children. Outside of work, Kenton strives to improve the awareness of how large-scale compute and cognitive computing can aid geoscientists and engineers to reduce risk, increase success and understanding subsurface data probabilities using automated and data driven workflows for characterizing the subsurface. Kenton has a PhD in geophysics from University of California, Santa Barbara, where he worked in collaboration with Caltech and the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) to build subsurface velocity models to help understand crustal dynamics of earthquakes.

Sury Purwar

Sury Purwar is the practice manager for O&G consulting services at Amazon Web Services. In this capacity, he leads a global team of consultants with very deep expertise in cloud technology and works with global O&G customers on digital transformation projects. Prior to that, Sury worked with Halliburton for 10+ years supporting customers globally in the area of integrated operations and digital oil field. He is a recognized industry expert in this domain having published 20+ technical papers in industry conferences and peer-reviewed journals. He holds an MS in petroleum engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a BS in chemical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Scott Kimbleton

Scott Kimbleton is global AI solutions deployment leader for the Natural Resources Industries within IBM’s Industry Platform unit. He has 16 years’ experience delivering analytics and cognitive solutions, the last nine focused on chemicals and petroleum. Scott co-designed and delivered the course, AI for Engineering in Chemicals & Petroleum, at CCNY. The course brought together students from different departments for hands-on AI skills development, exposure to industry experts, and a case study comprised of a business case, functional application, and executive presentation.

Scott is a contributor to the Journal of Petroleum Technology (JPT), Petroleum Review, IBM’s IBV Oil & Gas Cognitive Point of View, IBM Redbooks© and author of multiple white papers on data management. Speaking engagements include Petroleum Networking Education Conferences (PNEC), Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) events. Scott also led the Engineering in the Cognitive Era client workshops at IBM's World of Watson event.

Sai Maudgalya

Sai Maudgalya has worked in numerous roles at Anadarko since 2005, spanning onshore production, completion, and international reservoir engineering. He is currently working on the Mozambique deepwater development. His key interests include the areas of integrated asset management and production optimization. Sai received a BE in chemical engineering from India in 1998, and MS and PhDs in petroleum engineering from University of Oklahoma.

Tracy Li

Tracy Li is the leader of digital enterprise for Baker Hughes (BHGE) Oilfield Services. In this role, she is responsible for the organization’s strategy and execution on digitizing engineering, manufacturing, repair and maintenance through the lifecycle of the products where data plays key role in decision making, operations efficiency, and customer satisfaction. Tracy started her career at Superior Industries, an automotive supplier in 1999 as a product development engineer. She joined Baker Hughes in 2006 and has held various positions in in research and development, product lifecycle management, Baker Hughes - GEOG Integration, as well as Digital Enterprise. Recent roles included Director of Enterprise PLM, Baker Hughes - GEOG integration lead for engineering processes and systems, and digital enterprise lead for oilfield services at BHGE. Tracy Li earned her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Nanjing University of Science and Technology in China and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from University of the Arkansas at Fayetteville.

Hector Klie

Hector Klie is an experienced computational and data scientist primarily focused on the development of artificial intelligence solutions to simplify and automate oil & gas operations. Dr. Klie is currently data science technical lead and chief executive officer of DeepCast.ai and adjunct professor of the Dept. of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University. Before his current positions, he was director of enterprise data solutions and lead data scientist at Sanchez Oil & Gas Corporation (2016-2017) and staff reservoir engineer and lead data scientist at ConocoPhillips (2008-2016). He was previously associate director at the Center for Subsurface Modeling at The University of Texas at Austin (2003-2008). Hector has been involved in numerous multi-disciplinary projects and published over 80 papers in the fields of reservoir engineering, geophysics, applied mathematics and computational science. He has made notable contributions in the areas of sparse linear solvers, stochastic optimization, uncertainty quantification, high performance computing, reduced order modeling and machine learning. He has chaired multiple technical venues at SPE, SIAM, EAGE and SEG and has patented five inventions. Hector completed his PhD in computational science and engineering at the Dept. of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University, 1997.

Anil Godumagadda

Anil Godumagadda is a director with Patterson-UTI's Drilling and Technical Services group, leading the Drilling Optimization and Data Center. He is responsible for developing business intelligence applications, analytics, operational KPIs and metrics to improve the performance of drilling operations. With his direction, his team has built a platform utilizing big data technology and leveraging cloud computing. This platform has helped Patterson-UTI rapidly develop advanced, scalable applications that promote operational efficiency within the company, and provide visibility to leadership and their customers. The platform has expedited the development of real time applications, artificial intelligence, and machine learning models that identify trends in drilling data to proactively manage drilling operations, tools and equipment reliability.

Anil has over 17 years of experience in the oil and gas industry working for drilling contractors and service providers. He has developed digital solutions such as electronic data recorders, PVT systems, IADC/Operator reporting systems and BI/Analytics solutions. His passion is to build strong technical teams, leveraging cloud services and modern technologies that expedite development and deliver value added solutions to customers.

Anil holds a BS in computer science & engineering from Karnatak University and MS in computer science from University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is also an active member of SPE and IADC.

Paloma Urbano

Paloma Urbano is HR analytics manager for ConocoPhillips and holds a Masters in analytics from Texas A&M. She has more than 25 years of experience enabling information management and data analytics solutions for exploration and production companies. In her free time, she supports young women in high schools who participate in coding clubs through the Girls Talk Tech Program.

Nick Livingstone

Nick Livingstone joined Rystad in 2017 and is responsible for the overall business across the Americas. Nick has 20 years of experience in the oil and gas sector working in London and Houston across product development, analyst, business development and leadership roles. Prior to joining Rystad, Nick spent 13 years with Wood Mackenzie where he was SVP, Sales & Marketing responsible for expanding the company’s regional presence and revenues. He has worked with oil companies, NOCs, financial institutions and utilities all over the world and is now based in Houston. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Nottingham.

Chandra Yeleshwarapu

Chandra Yeleshwarapu is senior director of Digital Transformation and Business Development with Landmark Software & Services. His responsibilities include business development and delivering the digital tools for our industry, OpenEarth® community and platform, iEnergy® Cloud, and artificial intelligence and machine learning with the Big Data Center of Excellence.

In his previous role, Mr. Yeleshwarapu was senior director of R&D, Customer Support, and Global Services at Halliburton Landmark. Prior to joining Landmark in 2011, Mr. Yeleshwarapu was senior director of Solutions Management at Ariba (now SAP), and director of product strategy and product management at Oracle.

Mr. Yeleshwarapu is co-author of multiple patents and patent applications. He is on the board of directors at Energetics, the upstream industries data exchange standards organization.

He earned his bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Pune University in India, his master of science in software engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and his MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

Luther Birdzell

Luther is an entrepreneur, data scientist, and engineer passionate about energy efficiency and democratizing AI. From boardrooms, to oilfields, to data centers, Luther has been transforming data from a cost to an asset for over 20 years. In 2013 he founded OAG Analytics to build a cloud platform that makes AI easy and scalable for the oil & gas industry. Luther is an expert at simplifying complex software and optimizing assets with advanced analytics.

Riteja Dutta

Riteja Dutta is the senior product manager for engineering and analytics at Drillinginfo, where she provides domain expertise in petroleum engineering as their principal engineer. She began her career as a reservoir engineer at Gaffney, Cline & Associates and then continued as a reservoir modeling and simulation engineer with the global consulting group in Baker Hughes. She has consulted on asset evaluations and field development planning for conventional and unconventional oilfield assets across North America, Latin America, and Australia.

Riteja graduated from Pennsylvania State University with her masters in petroleum engineering. Her experimental and modeling research on unconventional plays has appeared and been recognized in major SPE conferences and journals, including work recognized by SPE International as the Best Student Research Paper in 2012. She currently serves on the board for the SPE Global Women in Energy as the chair for the Gulf Coast Section.

Nick Larcombe

Nick Larcombe is Head of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for Hess Corporation, a leading global independent energy company engaged in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas.

Larcombe is responsible for all Information Technology across the enterprise including cyber security, IT operations and business enablement through emerging digital technologies.

He joined Hess in 2013 as IT director of subsurface computing, adding responsibility for drilling, engineering and operations systems in 2014 and information management and data analytics in 2015.

Prior to joining Hess, Larcombe held progressive IT leadership and consulting roles for Venture Information Management with assignments at BP and Lasmo plc and spent 13 years in both technical and managerial positions with BHP Billiton Petroleum. He also led global knowledge management practice for BHP in 2006 before progressing to senior manager for subsurface systems in 2008.

Larcombe holds a bachelor’s degree in Geology (BSc Hons) from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Sathiya Namasivayam

Sathiya is currently the global director of software development & data analytics. Sathiya is responsible for software design, development, automating the process to make it consumable by clients with ease. As the global director, Sathiya oversees the technical management of the Software Development and Data science group. During his 22+ years in oil & gas software and data career, he built software/data products for oil & gas verticals. At TGS, in last few years he worked on building the Data Lake for TGS by getting all the data in the cloud platform and also built the TGS e-commerce platform and is now working with data scientists to build ML/AI based products at TGS AI platform. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling with his wife and two daughters.

David J. Howard, P.Eng.

David has been an energy analyst at RSEG since 2007 and his current responsibilities include directing the Permian and Mid-Continent Intelligence teams as well as the company’s subsurface and data science initiatives. Since 2007, David has been heavily involved in advisory mandates and equity research focused on unconventional oil and gas plays and companies across the Lower 48. David is registered as a professional engineer (petroleum and chemical) in Alberta. He received a bachelor of engineering science in chemical engineering from Western University in 2001.

Becky Thomas

Becky Thomas is chief operating officer for i2k Connect, an Artificial Intelligence Software Company delivering information insights for the oil & gas, financial services and health & wellness industries. She is a serial entrepreneur who has spent her career helping companies commercialize software and solutions in the marketplace. Ms. Thomas was recognized as one of the Top Women in Technology in 2007, FHPW Women of Excellence in 2008, and is a noted public speaker and lecturer. She is an active member and volunteer with the SPE. Ms. Thomas judges the Annual Rice Business Plan Competition at Rice University and mentors young entrepreneurs. She holds a Bachelor of Science Business Management from University of Phoenix.

Adriana Citlali Ramírez

Adriana Citlali Ramírez is a Mexican citizen who has a PhD in physics from the University of Houston. During her graduate studies, Adriana did internships with Shell, Statoil (now Equinor), ConocoPhillips, and BP. After graduation, she worked in R&D at WesternGeco in the US, and later at PGS in the UK. In 2012, Adriana joined Equinor’s Research and Technology Exploration unit in Norway, where she led the R&D work related to broadband technology. She later joined Geophysical Operations, focusing on survey design and new technological developments. As of January 2018, Adriana is a geophysics specialist and a member of the Chief Geophysicist Exploration Team in Equinor. She has an advisory role for the discipline of geophysics within Equinor, where she focuses on the strategy and implementation of research projects and technology development.

Adriana has authored four patents and over 30 technical publications. She is a member of the SEG Research Committee, EAGE Research Committee, and Chair of the SEG Europe Regional Advisory Committee. Since 2018, she serves on the Board of Directors of the SEAM Advance Modeling Corporation.

Viranchi Vedpathak

Viranchi Vedpathak is a petroleum field geologist located in the Permian Basin area in Texas. His professional interests mainly include drilling and reservoir engineering. As a young professional with one year of field experience, he is rapidly learning the technical and managerial aspects of drilling operations. Following his penchant for gaining deeper insights into complex operations, he started his data analysis journey at the University of Southern California during his Master of Science program.

Viranchi has co-authored three international publications in the domain - data analysis applications to the oil and gas industry. His work includes collaborating with different companies to find innovative techniques for common problems and developing new avenues for generating value.

Viranchi holds a BE degree in petrochemical engineering (India), an MS degree in petroleum engineering and a specialization in smart oilfield technologies from the University of Southern California. Formerly, he held the office of SPE Chapter President at the University of Southern California. Viranchi is the recipient of the Orange County Engineering Council's Outstanding Engineering Student Award (2017).

Marise Mikulis

Marise Mikulis is a business and digital transformation whisperer. Her expertise was built over a unique career that blended her loves of the global upstream business, high tech, and improving work experience and impact. She has earned respect as an innovative leader in E&P product and service marketing, business improvement, and organizational development. Marise's affiliations included Baker Hughes a GE Company, PGS Exploration, Microsoft, and Energistics; she gained her field experience as geologist covering GOM Shelf assignments with The Superior Oil Company. In addition, she presently serves on the SPE Gulf Coast Section Board of Directors and the Transformation Subcommittee of the SPEI Digital Energy Technical Section.

What excites Marise about going to work every day is the prospect of helping her colleagues in E&P perform their extraordinary magic with less friction and greater business impact.

Xiaojun Huang

Xiaojun Huang is a digital transformation senior advisor at ExxonMobil Upstream. She is the lead executive focusing on subsurface transformation. Xiaojun brings to her team 10 years of academic research and 16 years of ExxonMobil technical, business, and managerial experience, with demonstrated success at setting strategic directions, planning, leading diverse teams, navigating through complex internal and external organizations, and delivering results. She holds bold and achievable visions and the ability to comprehend complex and uncertain business, commercial and technical situations, building alignment behind clearly defined strategy and decisive execution. Xiaojun enjoys building high-performance teams and believes leadership is about vision, strategy, honesty, humility and empathy.

Xiaojun joined ExxonMobil in 2003 after receiving a PhD in geophysics from MIT. She has progressed from a research scientist, to hydrocarbon explorer, R&D supervisor, global technology delivery and application manager, manager for China and Middle East new opportunities exploration, and geophysics manager before assuming the current position. Xiaojun lives in Houston with her husband and 15-year old son. She loves yoga, reading and travel. She commits her time to improving K-12 education and promoting equality at workplace.