Ralph Gall is currently the technical sales manager for Sonardyne. Gall graduated with a B.Sc. Degree in Electronic & Electrical Engineering from Robert Gordon’s, Aberdeen Scotland and joined Sonardyne Houston in 1999 as Technical Support Engineer. Gall became Technical Support Manager in 2006 and moved to his current role in 2011. He is responsible for full range of Sonardyne acoustic, inertial, optical and sonar products, with emphasis on Deepwater Projects, Subsea Asset Monitoring, Marine Robotics systems, and most recently applications within the Offshore Renewables sector. .

Thomas Culverhouse is the Acoustic Doppler Current Profiling (ADCP) Group Manager at Sonardyne. He earned his undergraduate degree in Experimental and Theoretical Physics and a PhD in Experimental Astrophysics from Cambridge University, UK. Culverhouse then took postdoctoral positions at the University of Chicago and UC Berkeley, working on the QUaD, SZA, and CARMA telescopes. After leaving academia in 2011 he returned to the UK, where he first worked for a technical consultancy, and then moved to his current position at Sonardyne. Culverhouse is resonponsible for delivering Sonardyne's range of ADCPs and working with customers to make them as useful as possible. In the extremely fortunate position where able to apply knowledge of both computational engineering and physics to interesting and challenging real‑world problems, Culverhouse is also a Chartered Physicist of the Institute of Physics in the UK. .

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Kimberley Hayes founded Valkim Technologies to support technology adoption in a safe, reliable manner with an emphasis on the non-destructive inspection industry. During her more than 25 years in MT, PT, UT, ET, and RT, she was responsible for executing strategic and tactical initiatives to bolster oil and gas market research and new product development for Fortune 500 companies.

She meets real-world customer needs while pressing innovation in current and future requirements through the NDE 4.0, digital transformation, and UAS/robotics initiatives in the inspection arena. Kim’s vast first-hand experience, from onshore rigs in North Dakota to turnarounds in Alberta, Canada, allows her to drive her organizational vision of advancing modernization on a global scale in the oil and gas industry propelled by customer needs. This vision spawned the founding of Valkim Technologies in November 2020 then formally April 2021 where within six months three patents submission, two prototypes were developed, and one is commercially launching 2023 for a Zone 0 robotic platform.

Kim has an MBA from Pepperdine University, Bachelor of Science with minors in mathematics and computers and most recently completed a certificate from MIT in AI/ML Business Strategy and AI/ML for Managers from the University of Texas-Austin. She is also supporting AI/ML efforts in AMPP (formerly NACE) and ASTM’s Assisted Defect Recognition of Digital Radiography. She is also heavily involved in SPRINT Robotics and shares the position of Vice-Chair on ASNT NDE 4.0.

Her publications include “Advancements in Radiographic Evaluation Through the Migration into NDE 4.0” published in January 2021 and chapters on “Image and Sound Recognition” and “Artificial Intelligence and NDE Competencies” for the upcoming publication NDE 4.0 Handbook.

Yvan Petillot is a Professor of Robotics and Autonomous Systems at Heriot-Watt University. He is interested in developing robotics solutions in the marine sector, supporting his long-term vision of robot teams operating in hazardous environments, supported by remote human operators. Over the last 20 years, he has made major contributions to robot perception, navigation and planning in the underwater domain. A former Royal Society Industry Fellow and the co-founder of SeeByte Ltd, Yvan Petillot is also determined to see academic research translate into new products and markets. He has created several EU robotics competitions to support the development of new talents in robotics in Europe.

As an industry expert and consultant to Subsea Systems Institute (SSI), John has contributed his perspective on the varying challenges facing the energy industry and the initiatives proposed by researchers developing solutions to those challenges. John began his career with General Electric Company (GEC) of England PLC founding GEC Oil and Gas and managing the Deepwater Production and underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) business, both commercial and military.

John by acquisition joined ABB and served as CEO for ABB Seatec and Vice President of Technology and Engineering for Oil and Gas Inc. He also served as the Director of the corporate ABB Oil and Gas Research Center (Zurich/Houston), coordinating technology across ABB Offshore Systems, Lummus Engineering & Deepwater and Vetco. John moved to General Electric (GE), by acquisition and moved into the role of Executive General Manager in GE Energy. He was responsible for GE Corporate’s business with major oil companies.

This included upstream, midstream, downstream and power generation. John is a graduate of the University of Surrey with a Bachelor of Science in Physics, a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from University of London and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Bath. John is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Society of Underwater Technology and chairs multiple Industry initiatives.”