Mark Darby is an independent consultant to the petrochemical, refining, and oil and gas industries with over 30 years of industrial experience in the application of advanced process control and optimization. Previously, he held a number of technical and management positions at Setpoint and AspenTech. Mark has also been a lecturer at the Dept. of Chemical Engineering at the University of Houston. Mark has written many technical articles, including chapters on MPC for the Encyclopedia of Systems and Control and the Process/Industrial Instruments and Controls Handbook.

He has served as a director of the Fuels and Petrochemical Division of AIChE. He continues to serve as the chair of the advanced control and monitoring sessions for the Fuels and Petrochemicals Division of AIChE and as a mentor of the ISA Mentor Program. Mark received a BS from Texas Tech University and a PhD from University of Houston, and is a registered PE in the state of Texas.

Dr. Michael Nikolaou is Professor and Associate Chair in the Dept. of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering with a joint appointment in Petroleum Engineering at the University of Houston. He has over 30 years of R&D experience in computer-aided systems engineering, with applications to energy, health, materials, and other industries.

In addition to his academic research, he has consulted extensively in industry and is named in seven patents. Before joining UH in 1997 he was tenured faculty at Texas A&M University and visiting scientist at MIT. He holds a Diploma from NTU Athens, Greece, and a PhD from UCLA, both in chemical engineering.

Dr. Guan Qin currently is associate professor of petroleum engineering and he also holds SPE –Gulf Coast Section Distinguish College Professor at Department of Petroleum Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston (UH). Prior to his current position at UH, he also served various academic positions in University of Wyoming and Texas A&M University.

Guan’s research interest is focused on application of advanced mathematical and computational methods in modeling multi-scale and multi-physics fluid transport processes in porous media, which involves molecular dynamic simulation for fluid transport in nano-scale pore spaces, lattice Boltzmann simulation for fluid transport processes in porous media with multi-scale heterogeneity, and application of discrete fracture modeling in unconventional reservoir simulations. His research has been supported by US National Science Foundation (NSF), China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China Chemical & Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec), China National Offshore Oil Corporation (Cnooc), US Department of Energy, Exxon Mobil, Qatar Research Funds, and Saudi Aramco.

Prior to his academic positions, Guan had more than 12 years progressive industry working experience in major oil companies that include Exxon Mobil Upstream Research Company, Mobil Technology Company and, China National Petroleum Corporation. His industry experience was research and development oriented, where he built the first-hand experience in formulating and managing inter-disciplinary research projects that presented strategic importance to the company’s business needs.

Dr. Guan Qin received B.S. degree in Engineering Mechanics at Tsinghua University, China, M.E. degree in petroleum engineering at Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration & Development (RIPED), China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), and Ph.D. degree in petroleum engineering at University of Wyoming in 1995.

Dr. Suryanarayanan Radhakrishnan is a Clinical Assistant Professor in Decision and Information Sciences at University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business. He is also the Managing Director of UH Energy. Prior to joining the University of Houston, he had worked 36 years for Shell in various responsible positions mostly in Planning, Strategy, Marketing and Business Management.

Since retiring from Shell in 2010, Dr. Radhakrishnan has been teaching courses at the Bauer College of Business, in Supply Chain Management, Project Management, Business Process Management, Innovation Management and Statistics. He teaches undergraduate, MBA and Executive MBA classes. At UH Energy, he has been involved in the development of UH Energy’s strategy working closely with the Energy Advisory Board. He coordinates the day to day working of UH Energy.

Dr. Radhakrishnan holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University, India; a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Oklahoma State University and a doctoral degree in Business Administration from University of Houston.

Dr. Dvijesh Shastri is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Houston – Downtown. He specializes in affective computing, human behavior analysis, and data analytics. He teaches graduate and undergraduate level data analytics courses including Python for Data Analytics, Information Visualization and Data Mining.

Dr. Shastri has co-authored more than twenty-five publications in premier conferences and journals. He received a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Sardar Patel University in 1997, an M.S. in Computer Science from Wright State University in 2001, and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Houston in 2007.

Dr. Robert Stewart is Professor of Geophysics, holds the Cullen Chair in Exploration Geophysics, and is Director of the Allied Geophysical Laboratories at the University of Houston. Prior to his current position, he was employed with Chevron’s Oil Field Research Lab in California; ARCO in Dallas; and Veritas Software in Calgary. Stewart was Professor of Geophysics at the University of Calgary, held its Chair in Exploration Geophysics, and co-founded the CREWES Project, a university-industry consortium.

He received the Natural Sciences and Mathematics Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Houston in 2013 and was presented with the UH Provost’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2014. Rob is a licensed geoscientist in Alberta (P. Geo.) and Texas (P.G.).

Dr. Stewart was a Society of Exploration Geophysicists’ (SEG) Distinguished Educator and received the SEG Lifetime Membership Award. He also served as President of the Canadian SEG and received its Honorary Membership Award and Medal. He served as Vice President of the Geophysical Society of Houston and is currently Vice President of the SEG.

Dr. Stewart received his Bachelor of Science in physics from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Kalyan Venugopal is based in Houston, TX and works as Training Services Manager for NExT, a Schlumberger Company. In addition to running the training services business for the Digital & Integration Division of Schlumberger in North America, he is involved in designing and delivering training programs for Schlumberger’s clients.

He started his career in the Oilfield Services Industry in 1995 as an M/LWD engineer with Schlumberger’s Drilling and Measurements Product Line. In a career spanning 25 years with Schlumberger, he has held a variety of technical and managerial positions with Drilling and Measurements, Oilfield Services, Data & Consulting / Petro-Technical Services and Software Integrated Solutions product lines in worldwide locations.

He has an integrated dual degree from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, India (M.Sc Mathematics and B.E Electrical and Electronics), a Masters in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot-Watt University, UK and a Masters in Data Analytics from University of Houston Downtown. He also holds Project Management Professional (PMP) and Tableau Desktop Specialist certifications.