Emerging Engineers Symposium 2019

Lee M. Tillman is president and chief executive officer of Marathon Oil Corporation and a member of the Marathon Oil Corporation Board of Directors. He joined the Company in August 2013.

Immediately prior to this, Tillman served as vice president of Engineering for ExxonMobil Development Company where he was responsible for all global engineering staff engaged in major project concept selection, and front end engineering and design.

He began his career in the oil and gas industry at Exxon in 1989 as a research engineer. He has extensive operations management and leadership experience that has included assignments in Jakarta, Indonesia; Aberdeen, Scotland; Stavanger, Norway; Malabo, Equatorial Guinea; Dallas and New Orleans.

Tillman holds a bachelor's of science degree in chemical engineering with honors from Texas A&M University and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Auburn University. He is a member of the University of Houston Energy Advisory Board, the Chemical Engineering Advisory Council of Texas A&M University and the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Susan Rosenbaum is director of Discipline Career Management and Knowledge Management at Schlumberger, a position she has held since 2014. In this role, Rosenbaum oversees the professional development of Schlumberger’s petrotechnical engineers and scientists, working with her team to ensure that recruiting, training, and developing this key population meets the company’s current and future business needs.  Related to this, she oversees Schlumberger’s technical career ladder, the means by which Schlumberger’s technical population can advance in job grades and technical recognition.  Rosenbaum also defines the knowledge strategy of the company and manages its technical communities of practice. A 29-year veteran of Schlumberger, Rosenbaum joined the company as a member of the technical staff and has served in a variety of technical and management positions of increasing responsibility, developing a broad knowledge of business and technical needs in the oil and gas industry.

Rosenbaum has a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.S. in Computer Science (College of Engineering) from the University of Texas at Arlington. She is the recipient of the “Corporate Champion” award from the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and has been recognized as an “Honorary Mechanical Engineer” from the Academy of Distinguished Alumni in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UT Austin. 

Art is the founder and president of Gelber & Associates, an international energy advisory and consulting firm which focuses on devising and managing market strategies for large industrial firms and utilities. Since founding Gelber, Art’s commercial pursuits have focused on natural gas trading, energy risk management, and providing expert consulting services for a wide array of customers in the natural gas, crude oil, and power industries. Art has 30 years of experience in the energy industry. He is the recognized expert in many of the landmark litigation battles since the year 2000. Prior to founding Gelber & Associates, Art received advanced degrees from Colorado College and Rice University in geology and applied geophysics.  As a result of his notably fast 10K corporate racing time running for the Conoco Corporate Team, Gelber was transferred from upstream exploration to crude oil trading during one of the major industry downturns. Art Gelber’s current energy projects are an LNG export project located on the northeast Atlantic Coast and a proprietary natural gas storage project in the mid-continent area. He and his staff have appeared numerous times on Bloomberg, CNBC, and Fox Business News and are frequently consulted by publications, including The Economist, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Bader Metouri has over 40 years of global experience in the oil and gas industry, specifically in operations, management, development and engineering, procurement and construction of LNG liquefaction facilities, gas treatment facilities and natural gas-based projects.

Bader Metouri’s previous projects include operating, maintaining and managing Sonatrach’s LNG Plants at Skikda and Arzew, Algeria; Engineering Manager of the Pre-FEED in-house and the FEED design with MW Kellogg of Qatargas 1 LNG project in Qatar; Technical Advisor to the Oman Government on structuring the Oman LNG project into a Joint Venture with IOCs and participating in the optimization of the design of the Oman LNG Plant; Technical Advisor for the upgrade project of a major US LNG Peak Shaving Plant;  Technical Advisor to Gazprom for the Shtokman LNG Project  in Russia; Director of Technical Services for Cheniere; and Vice President of Engineering for Cameron LNG. Currently Bader Metouri runs from his Downtown Office in Houston an LNG consultancy service through his company LNG Expert Solutions.

Bader Metouri has a Bachelor of Science degree in Fuel Engineering from the University of Leeds in the UK. Recent presentations and publications on topics related to LNG and industrial planning of process facilities include Handling Mercury in Feed Gas to LNG Plants; Helium, Ethane and LPG Production in an LNG Plant; LNG Process and Plant Efficiency; Inspection Procedures for LNG Storage Facilities; Safety, Engineering and Operability Aspects in Planning LNG Plants and Industrial Zones; and Trends in Capital and Operating Costs of Large-scale LNG Plants. Currently working on a book “LNG Plant Operations Handbook” to be published in 2020.

Nancy Zakhour is a Completion Engineer Advisor at Occidental Petroleum, currently managing a multidisciplinary and cross-functional project that focuses on developing breakthrough solutions by leveraging geoscience, engineering, analytics, and data management.

Prior to working for Occidental, Nancy worked as Callon Petroleum's Completion Engineering Advisor, supervising and monitoring all completion activity and contracts as the company tripled in size. Prior to Callon, Nancy worked for Schlumberger's Well Services segment in North America and various international locations in both technical and field operational roles.

Outside of work, Nancy served as Program Chair on the Women in Energy (WIN) Committee for SPE-GCS, which held its inaugural event on January 18, 2019. Nancy has been a panelist, speaker, presenter at various SPE conferences and workshops. She is a recipient of the SPE Regional Completions Optimization and Technology Award.

Nancy earned her bachelor's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the American University of Beirut and an MBA from Rice University.

Dr. Jody Burks has a diverse set of roles at IBM. Her main role at IBM is as a Client and Partner Developer Advocate, helping other developers and data scientists with Proof-of-Concept projects and delivering developer engagement workshops, hackathons and whiteboarding sessions in a wide variety of technologies from blockchain, artificial intelligence and data science to cloud integration, API strategies and much more.

With expertise in oil and gas surfactant selection, and in bioinformatics and chemical structure prediction of large macromolecules, Dr. Burks is also an Ambassador for our Quantum Computing technology. As a “Q Ambassador”, she educates clients and the public about IBM’s publicly available quantum computers, and the progress IBM has made toward Quantum Readiness and Quantum Advantage.

A Hurricane Harvey survivor, Dr. Burks is also active as a mentor for Call for Code, a global competition challenging the world’s developers to create solutions that significantly improve preparedness for natural disasters and accelerate relief when they hit.

Dr. Burks is an SPE member and has 9 publications, 5 patents and 4 patents pending in chemical analysis workflows, mechanical designs, chemistry, and materials science. She enjoys creative activities like painting, music and inventing and travels the world with her family.

Jennifer Fitzgerald is currently Corporate Reserves QA/QC Manager at Occidental Petroleum Corporation, following the recent acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. Prior to joining Anadarko in 2014, Jennifer worked at Ryder Scott Company and ExxonMobil Corporation. She has extensive experience evaluating a variety of conventional and unconventional assets in basins around the world. Jennifer is an industry expert in SEC and SPE-PRMS reserves definitions.

Jennifer earned a BS degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana and is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Texas.  She is an active member of the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers, currently serving as Executive Committee President and as a Member for Monograph 5.   She is also a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Brian Elliott is the U.S. Technical Sales Director for Tenaris and is responsible for providing OCTG technical support to customers in the Gulf of Mexico, the Lower 48, and Alaska. His team of engineers is responsible for implementing Tenaris’ technical differentiation strategy in their respective regions, completing market segmentation, and proposing new products/services to close gaps in the Tenaris portfolio and meet customer technical requirements..

In his previous role at Tenaris Brian led the Field Services department in the U.S. – a team of 50+ Field Services Representatives that provided OCTG technical and running assistance for Tenaris customers.

Prior to joining Tenaris Brian worked as a quality consultant for Chevron Thailand to develop local Chevron quality requirements, standard operating procedures, vendors’ contractual quality obligations, and coordinate QA/QC surveillance for rental tools, OCTG, and wellheads.  Prior to his time in Bangkok Brian was a Project Manager for TH Hill Associates covering their operations in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

Brian earned his bachelor’s degree in General Management from the United States Military Academy at West Point.  He served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 2002 – 2007, deploying to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 and 2005.  He was awarded two Bronze Star Medals during his time in service.  Brian loves baseball, football, the outdoors, and traveling the world with his wife and son.

Imran Kizilbash joined CSL Capital Management as Managing Director.

Prior to joining CSL, he was Vice President of the Schlumberger Corporate Venture Fund based in Houston. As the Head of the Venture Fund, Mr. Kizilbash was responsible for investing and managing Schlumberger’s venture investment portfolio of ~ $100mm with approximately 20 investments. In addition, he was also responsible for raising two funds of $1bn each for Schlumberger’s SPM (Schlumberger Production Management) business.

Prior to this role, he was Vice President and Treasurer for Schlumberger Limited based in Houston, and has held senior management positions such as Schlumberger Limited Financial Controller, President Reservoir Characterization Group, President of Middle East & Asia and President of Drilling and Measurements.

Mr. Kizilbash joined Schlumberger as a Wireline and Testing Field Engineer in 1989 and has held numerous operations, management, financial, marketing and human resource positions for the company in the United States, Europe, Middle East and Far East.

Mr. Kizilbash has a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Applied Sciences and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering, both degrees from the California Institute of Technology.

Spencer Bohlander is a Drilling Engineer at Apache Corporation and co-founder of Icarus Energy. Recently, he has rejoined Apache to develop and implement advisory solutions for the DIG (Drilling Intelligence Guide) program which includes both physical and data analytics modeling capabilities. Previously, Spencer worked as the Drilling  SME and Product Manager for Moblize, a SAAS company, and served as a Drilling Supervisor and a Drilling Engineer for Apache Corporation. 

Melissa Suman is the North America Product Line Manager, Software Integrated Solutions (SIS), a position she assumed in 2019.  SIS is responsible for providing commercial software, information management, IT infrastructure, services and solutions across the entire E&P lifecyle.

Prior to this, she was the SIS Vice President, Data and NExT responsible for both developing new External Data businesses and manging the global NExT training business. 

In 2016-2018, Melissa worked for SIS as Global Cloud Solutions Business and Operations Manager responsible for managing commercial business models, business development, deployment, operation and support of all commercial cloud solutions in Schlumberger.

In 2014-2016, she served as Seismic Marine Operations Manager for WesternGeco.  Prior to that, she held a variety of business development roles across many technologies and in many locations around the world.  She joined Schlumberger as a Geophysicist in Houston in 2003.

Melissa holds a Master of Science, Management of the Oil and Gas Industry from Heriot-Watt University and a Bachelors degree in Aerospace Engineering from Auburn University.

Adwait brings 24 years of service in Reservoir Management, Digital Technology, Asset Development, and Corporate Planning roles. He joined Chevron in La Habra, CA after working 2 years elsewhere, and has enjoyed assignments in California, Kuwait and Texas. Adwait is very active with SPE. He was the past SPEREE review chairman and technical editor. He has chaired numerous SPE conference sessions, workshops and forums. Adwait has 30+ SPE presentations and publications and holds 4 patents.

Currently holds the position of Unit Manager, Reservoir Performance Services Unit (RPS)At Chevron Energy Technology Company. 

Education : PhD Petroleum & Natural Gas Engr., The Pennsylvania State Univ., Leadership Program, Stanford Univ.

Veronica Gonzales is currently a Completions Advisor for Callon Petroleum.  She currently works with the subsurface team integrating completion optimization with disciplines such as geology, petrophysics, geomechanics, and reservoir engineering.  Her experience extends from stimulation, cementing, production analysis, completion optimization and reservoir engineering.

Prior to working for Callon, Veronica worked with Schlumberger for 15 years within multiple business units such as, Well Services, PetroTechnical Services, Data & Consulting Services, and Integrated Production Services.  She served as the Unconventional Production Director and the USW Stimulation Domain Manager where she was responsible for technical professionals across global unconventional projects.  She began her career with Schlumberger in 2003 as a field engineer within Well Services.

Veronica holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Texas A&M University in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s of Science degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Oklahoma.  She has industry commitment with SPE publications, reviewing publications for Oil and Gas Journals and authoring a book chapter on completion optimization for Unconventional Resources (Chapter 8, Y Zee Ma and Stephen Holditch, 2015). 

Manish is the Global Managing Director for Natural Resources industries, based in Silicon Valley, California. At IBM, Natural Resources covers the Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Metals, Mining, Paper, Building Materials and other materials industries. Manish took this role in Jan 2019 after leading the IBM business in these industries in the US, and then Asia Pacific to sustained growth. He is accountable for IBM’s business in these industries globally with a focus on strategic clients. Manish also leads the IBM strategy, solutions & partnerships for these industries. 

 Manish is helping CXOs leverage exponential technologies (AI, IoT, Blockchain, Industry 4.0, 5G, etc.) to fundamentally re-imagine their enterprises in the platform economy and survive (and thrive) in the face of the three climate changes - environment, globalization and technology. He is helping companies in the sector transform their operations, talent, customer experience, products; and most importantly drive sustainable development for themselves and the world.

 Manish has over 23 years of diverse management / technology advisory & solution experience related to global business transformations in these industries. This includes several years of frequent executive management/C-level interaction as a trusted business advisor helping his clients envision roadmaps to drive step-change in key areas of their organizations.

 Manish joined IBM in 2008 in the US with a focus on Natural Resources clients, eventually moving on to lead this segment in IBM US from 2011 to 2013. He then relocated from the US to India to lead IBM’s Industrial sector in Asia Pacific from 2014 to 2015 and then serve as Global General Manager for Industrial Products (Construction, Machinery, Metals, Mining, Paper, etc). Prior to that, Manish worked at BearingPoint US (formerly KPMG Consulting) from 1999 to 2007 and consulted with several global Industrial Sector clients on a variety of global ERP transformation programs. Before joining KPMG in 1999, Manish worked with Accenture in India & the UK for three years focused on BPR / manufacturing cost reduction projects as well as ERP implementations.

Shannon E. White is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Corporate Performance Improvement in Houston. Mr. White specializes in the upstream segment of the oil and gas industry. He focuses on global business development, sales, and the petrotechnical oil and gas solutions that bridge the gap between petroleum front- and back-office solutions and services.

Over his two-decade career, Mr. White has worked with several global oilfield and equipment services and exploration and production (E&P) customers as an innovations leader for business transformation, leveraging digital IT solutions to help companies reduce operating costs and increase predictable cash flow generation.

He brings more than 24 years of sales experience in developing state of the art technology and business development solutions and has managed all aspects of services solutions sales including consulting, marketing and managed services delivery across multiple industries including oil and gas, utilities, chemicals, mining, and engineering.

Over the course of his career, Mr. White advised and partnered with clients to drive significant sales revenues in the areas of IT outsourcing, business process outsourcing, applications rationalization, consulting and technology solutions. He has worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies including BHP, Schlumberger, Marathon Oil and Marathon Petroleum, Apache Corporation, ConocoPhillips, Tesoro, BP, and Halliburton.

Prior to joining A&M, Mr. White served as a Senior Director of Oil and Gas Sales for Accenture and was responsible for global sales origination and business development. 

Mr. White began his career as an Electrical Engineer and pioneer of Motorola’s CDMA Cellular infrastructure organization. While with HP for 15 years, Mr. White managed Schlumberger’s Global Account Sales where he grew the Schlumberger “Sell To, Through and With” business from $2M to $200M over five years. Mr. White also ran North American Sales for Unisys Global Outsourcing and Infrastructure Services organization. 

Mr. White earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Prairie View A&M University in 1994.

Lee Maginniss, a Managing Director, specializes in operational improvement across all energy segments, engineering / construction, and industrial products.

With over 25 years of professional experience, Mr. Maginniss brings expertise developing and executing operational improvement solutions across oil & gas industry sectors. His notable E&P clients include Anadarko, Bonanza Creek, CallonPetroleum, Chesapeake Energy, ConocoPhillips, Covia, Diversified Gas & Oil, EnerVest, Encana, Energy XXI, EP Energy, EXCO Resources, Legacy Reserves, Maverick Natural Resources, Northwoods Energy, Oxy Petroleum, Pioneer Natural Resources, Southwestern Energy, TalosEnergy, and Titan Energy.  Mr. Maginniss has delivered performance improvement services across various areas:

Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Maginniss was a Senior Manager in the Supply Chain Planning / Supply Chain Strategy practices at IBM Business Consulting Services (formerly PricewaterhouseCoopers), leading global supply chain and operations transformation engagements across multiple industries for over 9 years.  Previously, he was a Plant Manager and Engineer at Honeywell IAC, and led Distribution and Transportation Planning solution delivery while at Manugistics.

Mr. Maginniss earned a bachelor's degree in industrial systems engineering from Virginia Tech, and a master's degree in industrial and management systems engineering from Arizona State University. He was awarded a Fellowship in Arizona State University's Corporate Leaders Program.  Mr. Maginniss has also been a speaker at various industry conferences, including the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), the Council of Logistics Management (CLM), the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), and INFORMS.

Nii Ahele Nunoo is currently a New Technology Design Engineer at National Oilwell Varco. His oilfield career started in 2012 designing and qualifying electronics on projects for high shock, high pressure, and high-temperature downhole drilling tool applications. His focus and expertise are downhole drilling tools used for closed-loop automation and downhole tool development. 

He earned his BS in Electronic Engineering from Minnesota State University and an MBA from Duke University – Fuqua School of Business with a concentration in Energy finance. 

Nii started his involvement with SPE by serving on the SPE Young Professionals Board the last five r years. Last year he chaired a 26 member board of young professionals that organized technical presentations, community events, networking event and social impact event in the Gulf Coast section for Young oil and gas professionals in the energy environment. Before that, he also served as the chair for the Emerging Engineers Symposium (EES). EES is a one-day conference that focuses on technical dissemination of oil and gas for young professionals between 5 to 10 years in the industry. Under his leadership, the conference attendance increased by 18% and in effect raising USD 42,000 in scholarships for students. Nii is also a regular presenter at various energy4me events in schools in Houston. 

On the board of directors level, Nii served as the Career Management and Continuing Education Chair on the SPE-GCS Board of Directors. He organized workshops and introduced the Technical Writing soft skill workshop for working professionals in the session. He also participated and contributed to question review sessions for Petrobowl over the years. He’s one of the four founders of SPE -GCS Innovate committee that brought about innovation and entrepreneurship discussions to the oil and gas table in Houston. 

Nii is a Lead content creator for The Way Ahead Magazine and contributed to the international SPE scene by presenting papers, helping organize and spearheading an oil and gas inter-varsity competitions such as Drillbotics that promote innovation in the ecosystem. He is the incoming chair of the YMEC committee. One remarkable thing Nii accomplished was to team up with a well-known industry professor, Samuel Robello, to organize drilling workshops for individuals in the drilling discipline. These workshops did not only impact technical professionals in the industry but also raised close to 60,000 USD in scholarships for college students in the Gulf Coast Section. Finally, Nii has also co-authored five publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Victor Torrealba is reservoir engineer with Chevron working on gas enhanced oil recovery in tight rock unconventional reservoirs. Originally from Venezuela, he received BSc (Hons), MSc and PhD degrees all in petroleum engineering from The Pennsylvania State University. Before joining Chevron, he worked as a researcher at KAUST in Saudi Arabia, focusing on extending the productive life of maturing fractured carbonate reservoirs in the Middle East. He is very active with SPE, until recently serving in the editorial boards of TheWayAhead and SandRose, the YP magazines for SPE International and Saudi Arabia section, respectively.

Barbara Pickering is General Manager of Natural Gas Liquids, Supply and Trading, which is responsible for marketing supply and offtake of NGLs for Chevron’s refineries and marketing NGLs produced by upstream assets in the Permian, Angola, Nigeria and WC Australia. 

Barbara joined Chevron in 1991, as a ship charter with Chevron Shipping in London, supporting Tengizchevroil, and has moved into various operational and commercial management roles in upstream, midstream and downstream. Notable positions were Chevron Shipping’s first fleet/tanker manager, where her team brought into service Chevron’s first ship-operated LNG carrier. She also worked on the Gorgon LNG project where she established the first LNG Equity Office of Lifting, working on behalf of all Gorgon Equity Lift Partners, (ExxonMobil and Shell). 

Further outside interests include Ocean Yacht Racing, whereby Barbara has Master and pilotage qualifications. 

Barbara holds a bachelor’s degree in Maritime Studies from Liverpool University United Kingdom and is a Fellow member of Chartered Institute of Shipbroker. 

Dr. Ben Amaba holds a Ph.D. degree in Industrial & Systems Engineering, an M.B.A./M.S. degree in Engineering and Operations, and a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering. Dr. Amaba is a registered and licensed Professional Engineer in several states with International Registry; certified in Production, Operations, and Inventory Management by APICS ®; LEED® Accredited Professional (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design); and certified in Corporate Strategy by Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is responsible for industrial manufacturing, infrastructure, engineering, and supply chain solutions. Dr. Amaba is the Chief Technology Officer for the Industrial Sector, IBM Data Sciences and Artificial Intelligence Team Elite. Dr. Amaba’s focus and interest is in artificial intelligence, data sciences, and cloud technology.

Dr. Amaba holds copyright for Process Activity Flow Framework®, framework for requirements, design, architecture, simulation, and application development techniques. Dr. Amaba is prominently featured in “Giving 2.0,” by Laura ArrillagaAndreessen with Stanford Business School, which details contributions to bolster and promote STEM education and careers, and is an Alexis de Tocqueville Society/United Way Member, which recognizes local philanthropic leaders. 

Dr. Amaba holds positions as Industry Council Advisor to Project Production Institute, Board of Director of Whoop Wireless Corporation, UCX Corporation, and RANCS Group LLC, Executive Board Member of Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE) and Editorial Board Member to IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) IT Professionals, Founding member to the Institute of Advanced Systems Engineering, Founding member to the Center of Advanced Supply Chain Management, Editorial Board of The Open Cybernetics and Systemics Journal, and Executive Advisory Board Member to the University of Miami, University of
Houston, and the University of Central Florida.