Amy Close

Amy Close joined Laredo in August 2017 and currently serves as Director, Geosciences. Mrs. Close has 21 years of experience in exploration, development, A&D and operations throughout United States and internationally. After earning a master’s degree in geology from Oklahoma State University, she joined Kerr McGee exploring for oil and gas domestic and international. Mrs. Close broadened her US onshore experience with Penn Virginia and SM Energy. She was responsible for the development of the Arkoma basin and participated in the divestiture of the SM Energy’s Anadarko basin assets. Later she spent 2 years managing the Tulsa office of Palmer Energy Resources focused on acquisition of properties in Texas and Oklahoma. She is Past-President of the Tulsa Geological Society, Councilor-at-large, Geological Society Foundation of Tulsa, a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologist, and a Certified Professional Geologist.

Nelia Mazula

Nelia Mazula is a Global Account Manager for Siemens. She has over 20 years of experience in the engineering and software industries. She was an early employee for two software start-ups and has held numerous management and leadership positions. She was the founder of a retail manufacturer and distributor. She is currently the SWE Audit Chair and the President of FHPW. She has numerous certificates and over 20 published technical papers on digital strategies. Nelia has five software patents. She has been recognized globally as a technologist featured in the National Inventor’s Museum. For her leadership and innovation, she has appeared in numerous media outlets including KHOU Great Day Houston, KPRC News, Univision, and The Houston Chronicle. She was recently honored by the Houston Business Journal as a leading woman. Nelia is a certified professional project manager, holds a bachelor’s in chemical engineering from ASU and an MBA from INSEAD.

Sougata Halder

Dr. Sougata Halder has more than 13 years of industry experience providing technical leadership in integrated geophysical and geological analyses. She has worked from a range of domestic to international basins, including US and the Mexican sides of deep-water Gulf of Mexico, onshore North and South America, Brazil, Europe, and SE Asia. She is now responsible for technical interpretation modeling and management for TGS New Energy Solutions. She holds a doctorate degree in Geoscience from Southern Methodist University, Texas.

Robin Dommisse

Robin is a Senior Geological Modeling Advisor for the Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin. Robin has used his background in geology and petroleum engineering to create models for some of the largest oil & gas reservoirs in the world, including the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia and eight major Shale and Tight Oil basins in the US. Robin has spent 25 years in the industry developing 3D geological modeling software solutions and performing 3D reservoir characterization projects for many major, independent, and national oil & gas corporations.

Tom Smith

Tom Smith PE is a registered petroleum engineer who has over 40 years of upstream operations, reservoir, and M&A experience. He joined Marathon Oil in 1981 and was involved with many key new business and technology projects in Wyoming, Utah, Texas, and Colorado. In 2004, he joined Whiting Oil and Gas as a Sr. Operations Engineer managing their non-Bakken Assets in the Rockies. In 2010, Tom assumed the position of Business Development Manager, focusing on drilling JV’s and Acquisitions and Divestitures which led to over $1 billion in business transactions in the Bakken, DJ, Green River, and Uinta Basins.

Tom co-founded GeoBrines International, LLC in 2022. His close ties to the oil and gas industry are key to bringing an “all of the above approach to minerals exploration” to SPE, AAPG, and SEG through presentations at various industry-sponsored venues. Tom has a Bachelor of Science degree in Petroleum Engineering from Montana Tech (1981). He is a registered Petroleum Engineer in Wyoming since 1986. He has been a member of SPE since 1978 and is active in several professional organizations and associations.

GeoBrines International GBI, and a host of other "out of the barrel" thinkers, are currently developing processing technology to take from the atmosphere and use it in a CCUS process with mineral rich brines to permanently store the CO₂ as an alkaline earth carbonate product, such as aggregate commonly used for road base and in concrete. Demonstration scale testing is planned under a DOE funded project at a suitable in-field site where Calcium and Magnesium Chloride-rich brines are available to further evaluate the efficiency and economic viability of ex-situ CCUS technology as well as the extraction of Energy Relevant Minerals such as Lithium and other battery metals.

Recently, GeoBrines International has entered the Engineered Geothermal Systems (EGS) technology space by providing a method of In-situ Conformance Improvement using CO₂ infused brines rich in Calcium Chloride. This technology is a high temperature adaptation of a similar process used for improving the sweep efficiency from fractured waterflooded oil reservoirs. This new EGS technology provides a scalable, targeted method of correcting process fluid flow-path short-circuits between cold-hot well pairs that aren’t providing sufficient heat extraction from the subsurface reservoir at an EGS geothermal power project.

Wladmir Frazao

Wladmir Frazao is a disruptive technologist with more than 30 years of experience leading digital transformation and innovation. Wladmir turns ideas into new products and solutions working with global Fortune 500 enterprises to improve customers' business operations and to create new markets and programs. He enjoys thoughtful conversations about problems and perfecting designs, but in the end, he knows that what matters is delivering a manufacturable solution that works every time. Wladmir has a Master's degree in cognitive computing, enjoys learning and diving deep into new topics and areas to explore. He also loves the outdoors in Texas and spending time with family and friends celebrating life.

Uchenna Odi

Uchenna Odi is currently employed by Aramco Americas as a Petroleum Engineering Specialist and the Digital Transformation Lead for the Upstream Technical Services R&D group. At Aramco Americas, Uchenna focuses on digital transformation, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence for upstream technical workflows. His previous experience includes working for Devon Energy as a Data Scientist, working for ENI as a research scientist, and working for the MIT Energy Initiative as a Visiting Scientist. Uchenna currently has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering (with a minor in Chemistry) from the University of Oklahoma, Master of Science in Petroleum from Texas A&M University, Doctor of Philosophy in Petroleum Engineering, and an Executive MBA (with an energy focus) from the University of Oklahoma. Uchenna's research areas involve carbon dioxide upstream utilization, enhanced oil recovery, reservoir fluids, artificial intelligence for upstream operations, and digital transformation for upstream energy.

Richard Tarver

Richard Tarver joined the Oklahoma Geological Survey in 2011 as a Lab/Research Technician III at the Oklahoma Petroleum Information Center, where he currently works as Data and Collections Manager/Senior Program Coordinator. Richard has nearly a decade of collections management experience with emphasis on the digital preservation and curation of archival collections for research loans. Richare received his undergraduate and graduate education in Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma with a focus on skeletal biology and archaeology. As the recipient of several United States Geological Survey-Department of the Interior- (USGS-DOI) grants for data preservation, one of Richard’s principle objectives at the OGS is to foster the digital infrastructure of data holdings within the OGS-OPIC repository. In addition to his managerial duties at the OPIC facility, Richard is also working to establish a geoarchaeological lithic provenance study to determine the location and distribution of raw source materials used by early Paleoamerican hunter-gatherers to develop their tool industry.

Isaac Aviles

Isaac has over 20 years of experience in the technical evaluation, solution design, and business management of unconventional reservoir completions. He is an industry expert in the design and execution of multistage stimulation systems. He has worked with a wide range of customers on the selection and implementation of well completion strategies worldwide. Isaac holds an MBA degree from Rice University and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Universidad de las Americas.

In his current role, Isaac leads the transformation of products and services to fully leverage the opportunities of digital technologies and their impact across Schlumberger’s Reservoir Performance Division. In addition, Isaac is an active SPE member. He is a recurrent speaker at industry events on the area of unconventional assets development. He is part of the organizing committee of several renowned oil and gas conferences such as the Unconventional Resources Technical Conference and the Permian Basin Energy Conference.

Rachael Moreland

Coming Soon

Patrick Kelly

Patrick J. Kelly is currently Product Line Manager, Subsurface Data & Insights at Chevron. Patrick joined Chevron in 2008 and has more than 20 years of experience developing and implementing technology for network and internet infrastructure, process and control systems, science and engineering applications, and data and AI solutions. As Product Line Manager for Subsurface Data and Insights in Chevron's Technical Center, he is currently leading teams that are building solutions leveraging the OSDU(TM) data platform to enable faster, higher quality subsurface decisions. Patrick is also currently the elected chairperson of the OSDU Forum at The Open Group(R) (osduforum.org). Patrick holds a BS in Economics from Penn State University and a MS in Technology Commercialization from The University of Texas at Austin – McCombs.

Gary Hargraves

Coming Soon

Lisa Hill

Lisa Hill has been with ArgonDigital since 2005 and currently serves as the VP of Technology Strategy. Lisa's background is in Computer Science where she quickly discovered she preferred working with clients and building the vision for efficient technology solutions, rather than writing the code herself. Lisa focuses on identifying and growing technology partnerships as well as leading her teams to deliver high-quality implementations that solve client problems. Outside of work, Lisa is a die-hard Browns fan, along with her husband Bryant and two wonderful kids, Parker and Addie.

Cynthia Schwendeman

Cynthia Schwendeman has over 20 years of experience in the energy industry and has a proven track record of maximizing value from data. Currently, Cynthia is leading a global data management team that is implementing the carbon emissions and sustainability data management strategy for bp. Cynthia has spent most of her career delivering subsurface data solutions for geoscientists and engineers at oil and gas operators, most recently at Hess and Oxy. She specializes in improving the quality and accessibility of data for a wide variety of data consumers.

Cynthia is active in the professional community dedicated to advancing the role of data in the energy industry. She served on the Professional Petroleum Data Management (PPDM) Association’s Professional Development Committee from 2018 through 2021 and as the committee chair from 2019 to 2021. Cynthia also served on the Petroleum Network Education Conference (PNEC) Advisory Board from 2013 through 2018 and as the conference chair in 2017. Cynthia holds a bachelor’s degree in Geology from Louisiana State University.

Chris Hanton

Chris Hanton is a 15-year member of the energy industry, a career which has incorporated all facets of data, from acquisition, management, and utilization. As Director of Digital Transformation at Ikon Science, Chris uses his experience to assist the energy industry make strides in productivity and impact by empowering business units through digital technology. Chris comes from a geoscience background with a masters in Geology and Integrated Petroleum Geoscience.

Ryan Jarvis

Ryan Jarvis is currently the Subsurface Data Strategy Advisor for ExxonMobil. He chairs the subsurface data leadership team responsible for the vision, strategy, and roadmap for subsurface data in the upstream used across both engineering and geoscience disciplines. Ryan has worked in the energy industry for just over 19 years, the first half as a computational scientist, and the second half as a geoscientist. He has worked frontier exploration and new opportunities for Brazil, South America, and the Gulf of Mexico. He also led ExxonMobil's frontier research program and stewarded several research consortiums with universities across the globe.

Joe Wicker

Joe Wicker is currently the Team Lead, Geosciences for Laredo Petroleum located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has held several positions within Laredo since 2012 including Team Lead of Data Analytics, Senior Geologist, Project Geologist focused on play evaluation, multi-variate statistics, special projects, and horizontal development optimization. Mr. Wicker has over 16 years of experience that includes positions with Petroquest Energy developing and exploring within Arkoma assets, and at XTO Energy performing unconventional exploration in North America. He received his Master’s in Geology from Oklahoma State University in May 2008 and worked as a geologist for the Iron Sights Operating evaluating the Woodford Shale in the Ardmore Basin. Professional activities include American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), Energy Mineral Division of AAPG, Tulsa Geological Society (TGS), and former member of Fort Worth Geological society (FWGS).

Dan Morgan

Dr. Dan Morgan is a Senior Research Scientist / 3D Visualization Specialist at Petrabytes Corporation. Dr. Morgan has been working on Subsurface Visualization and implementing Energistics and OSDU standards. Dr. Morgan received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine. Prior to Petrabytes, Dr. Morgan worked as Post-Doctoral Fellow at Baylor College of Medicine and also worked in the US Navy as Nuclear Propulsion Plant Supervisor for over 8 years. Dr. Morgan has 2 US Patents that helps in faster processing of 3D Subsurface Data and Fiber optic Sensing Data.

Becky Thomas

Becky Thomas' work experience spans 30 years of commercializing technical software products. Becky is responsible for the operations supporting i2k Connect’s Artificial Intelligence platform within the industry. The i2k Connect AI Platform powers the Society of Petroleum Engineers Research Portal and is embedded AI in Schlumberger’s DELFI cognitive E&P environment. She has a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from the University of Phoenix. Becky volunteers her time with the Society of Petroleum Engineers, Judges the Rice Business Plan Competition, Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, and mentors young professionals from around the world.

Micah Nicolo, Phd

Micah is a Senior Geologist and Digital Product Owner with Shell International Exploration and Production. He is a Shell Subject Matter Expert in Integrated Reservoir Modelling workflows and analysis and currently supports Deepwater Developments within the Shell Integrated Reservoir and Production System Modelling Center of Excellence Team. He has 15 years of experience in the Energy Industry and has contributed to the subsurface value proposition estimation and field development planning for a wide variety of Exploration and Development projects, including both greenfield and existing asset traditional oil and gas onshore and offshore fields, waterflood opportunities, thermal and miscible gas flood Enhanced Oil Recovery developments, and Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage projects. As Digital Product Owner, Micah has steered the vision and execution of AutoSum, a Shell developed software ecosystem designed to efficiently and intuitively equip every technical professional within Shell with a suite of advanced Data Science / Machine Learning-based tools and techniques. A particular point of professional pride, Micah has helped grow AutoSum into a diverse data domain agnostic application set able to incorporate and leverage Data Science concepts, methods, and approaches across the full spectrum of Shell’s business with use cases from advanced oil and gas ensemble model analysis through to downstream trading and renewable energy opportunity evaluation.

Sathiya Namasivayam

Sathiya Namasivayam has vast experience for the last 25+ years in building software products and data products in oil and gas data domain. He is now responsible for Software Engineering & Data Analytics at TGS, busy building innovative products with machine learning algorithms and client facing eco systems. In his spare time, Sathiya enjoys traveling with his wife and two daughters.

Thomas Coleman

Thomas joined Silixa in 2014 and has been involved in activities ranging from field installations and surveys, data analyses, installations and component design, and business development. In his current role, he oversees Silixa’s Environmental and Infrastructure business in North America including the CCUS, Geothermal, Geotechnical, Industrial, and Defense sectors. Thomas holds a B.S. in Geosciences from the University of Montana, an M.A.Sc. in Water Resources Engineering from the University of Guelph, and is currently working towards an M.B.A. from the University of Montana. Thomas has numerous publications related to fiber optic sensing applications and is co – principal investigator of Department of Energy funded research programs. In 2021, Thomas was awarded the U.S. D.O.E. Secretary’s Achievement Award as part of the Source Physics Dry Alluvium Geology Team for contributions advancing the science of nuclear explosion monitoring.

Zac Coplon

Zac Coplon grew up in Claremore, Oklahoma. He attended Oklahoma City University. While in in school for a Bachelor’s of Spanish Language, and later MBA in Finance, he played on the OCU baseball team. His career in oil and gas began in 2017 when he co-founded a small OKC based company. Through this experience he found a passion for the O&G industry, particularly the upstream A&D space. Blue Bison Analytics (BBA) was created in early 2020. The team at BBA developed 4cast, a software intended for the forecasting and evaluating the economics of O&G wells. When he takes a break from the office, Zac enjoys spending time with his family and friends. You can usually find him at a live music concert, hunting, fishing, hiking, playing golf, and disc golf. He also volunteers as a youth baseball coach in the OKC Dodgers Rookie League and in the Oklahoma City University Mentor Program.

Dahl Winters

Dahl Winters is the CEO of TerraNexum, a startup headquartered in the greater Denver area. Her company specializes in developing intelligent, quantum-driven networks to accelerate the energy and carbon transition. Previously, Dahl was the CEO and CTO of DeepScience Ltd where she planned and built systems for science and sustainability applications for several major corporations and research organizations over a span of seven years. Along with solving problems using geospatial big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing, Dahl also innovated within renewable energy and carbon capture by constructing systems that integrated both. It was this work, along with the addition of quantum optimization techniques to her knowledge base and several noteworthy co-founders to her team, that inspired Dahl to form TerraNexum during the summer of 2022. Today, Dahl's goal is to advise customers on how to reach their decarbonization goals with a renewable energy mix offering the least emissions at the least cost within the timeframe they specify. An essential addition to that mix will be geothermal energy, given its ability to supply not only baseload power but also opportunities for oil and gas workers to reuse their skills, expertise, and technologies in the areas of clean energy and carbon sequestration.

Malleswar Yenugu, PhD

Malleswar Yenugu has been living in Houston for the last 10+ years. He holds PhD degree in Geophysics from the University of Houston. Dr Yenugu is the CEO of Byte Link Systems from Houston, TX. Dr. Yenugu offered guest lectures at various prestigious universities like Stanford, University of New Orleans, University of Tulsa, IIT-Bombay, etc. He is currently serving as the Vice-President for ITServe Houston chapter and as an Executive Board member at the national level. Dr. Yenugu is also an entrepreneur working on emerging technologies like AI, Blockchain, and Metaverse. Byte Link Systems is developing advanced medical condition diagnosis tools using Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. His company is working on developing an AI powered tool (US patent pending) called AIMedScan to diagnose Pneumonia and Covid-19 from X-rays and CT-scans. Dr Yenugu also developing AI tools for Stock Price Prediction and NLP AI chatbots for restaurants.

Kristy DeMarco

Kristy has been with Seagate for just under five years. In her current role, she leads the Lyve Mobile Services PLM and GTM team focusing on accelerating time to data for Edge applications across multiple data intensive workflows. Kristy and her team are chartered with translating key market and customer requirements into innovative solutions for future roadmap development and market enablement. She has held numerous roles in the networking, storage, and IoT industries managing a diverse set of product lines from consumer products to enterprise hardware and software services.

Philippe Herve

Philippe Herve has led PGNRG since founding the company in 2005. Herve is an executive with US and international success in operations, P&L, technology, business development, marketing, sales, and client relations. Herve's comprehensive experience in oil and gas spans large-scale project leadership, IT, engineering, manufacturing, and operation. Herve holds multiple patents in the field of ultrasonic and has authored many technical papers. He is a member of numerous professional organizations including the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Over the years, Mr. Herve has frequently been published in Bloomberg, Oil & Gas Journal, Journal of Petroleum Technology, World Oil, The Houston Chronicle, Drilling Contractor, and is a frequent speaker on diverse management and engineering subjects. Herve was a late comer to the AI revolution. He only started working on Artificial Intelligence in 1985. Artificial Intelligence had already been defined 30 years earlier.

Arvind Sharma

Coming Soon

Bradley Wallet

Dr. Bradley Wallet has a BS in Mathematics from Hampden-Sydney College, a MS in Statistical Sciences from George Mason University, a PhD in Geophysics from the University of Oklahoma, and as a life long learner, he is currently pursuing a MS in Weather and Climate Risk Analysis from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. He has spent 32 years researching machine learning and high dimensional spaces. Dr. Wallet began his professional career working as a civilian mathematician for the US Navy studying automated methods for infrastructure mapping. After leaving the Navy, he worked on such diverse areas as medical imaging, system biology, remote sensing, automated target recognition, and entomology before switching to geophysics 15 years ago. In the past 15 years, he has worked for the University of Oklahoma, Schlumberger, and Aramco Americas. Dr. Wallet is the deputy editor in chief of the SEG/AAPG peer reviewed journal Interpretation. Dr. Wallet is currently employed as a Senior Data Scientist with Studio X where his interests include large scale earth models for carbon management and applied terraforming.

Julian Chenin

Julian Chenin is a passionate leader and geoscientist who is now quantitatively optimizing machine learning algorithms for various geoscience applications at Bluware. He completed his MSc in Geophysics at the University of Oklahoma where his thesis work used unsupervised machine learning techniques to better image gas in the subsurface. Julian serves as the AAPG Global Co-Chair for Young Professionals (YPs), on the AAPG Sustainable Development Committee, and as the US alternate member of the World Petroleum Council's YP Committee.

James Cassanelli

Coming Soon.