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Technology is playing a large role in our research labs with state-of-the-art equipment from an innovative drilling simulator to a MMR scanner, but it’s also strategically incorporated into UT PGE classrooms, increasing students’ learning and better preparing them for careers in industry.

The Society of Petroleum Engineers’ (SPE) honored two UT PGE faculty members on May 8 in Midland, Texas with its 2014 regional awards. The prestigious awards recognized Dr. David DiCarlo for his work in reservoir engineering and Dr. Hugh Daigle for his formation evaluation research.

Winners of the SPE regional awards must be nominated by a secondary party, and each honoree is required to be a professional member of the organization. According to SPE, the awards recognize exceptional contributions to the society at the regional level and honor singular devotions of time and effort to various areas of technical expertise.

Joining UT PGE in 2007 as an assistant professor, DiCarlo received a promotion to associate professor in fall 2013. His research includes chemical enhanced oil recovery, gas enhanced oil recovery, and geological CO_² storage.

DiCarlo has been recognized for his outstanding teaching as well, winning the SPE Teaching Excellence Award, The UT PGE Teaching Excellence Award and has twice been nominated for ‘Favorite Professor’ within the department. His teaching methods and research have garnered much praise both within and outside the PGE community.

Daigle, an assistant professor, began teaching in the department last spring. Daigle brings a geological perspective to the department, as he received both his BS and PhD in earth sciences. His research areas include: drilling, well completions, and rock mechanics; integrated reservoir characterization; and unconventional resources, to name a few. Daigle recently garnered a $1.7 million grant from the Department of Energy to conduct an investigation of methane hydrates.

Assistant Professor Mark McClure said both professors have an impressive list of contributions to the oil and gas industry.

“I’m thrilled to see Drs. DiCarlo and Daigle winning these well-deserved awards,” says McClure. “Dr. DiCarlo has done pioneering research on oil recovery during gas injection, while Dr. Daigle’s research has made important contributions on permeability evolution during diagenesis, as well as on processes involved in the formation of gas hydrate deposits.”

Every year at spring commencement, The University of Texas at Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering honors its alumni with the Distinguished Engineering Awards, the highest honor the Cockrell School bestows on its alumni.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Editorial Board has selected six papers published by PNAS in 2013 to receive the Cozzarelli Prize, an award that recognizes outstanding contributions to the scientific disciplines represented by the National Academy of Sciences.  Papers selected were chosen from more than 3,800 research articles that appeared in the journal last year and represent the six broadly defined classes under which the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is organized.

The annual award acknowledges papers that reflect scientific excellence and originality.  The award was established in 2005 and named in 2007 to honor late PNAS Editor-in-Chief Nicholas R. Cozzarelli.  The 2013 awards will be presented at the PNAS Editorial Board meeting, and awardees will be recognized at an awards ceremony during the NAS Annual Meeting on April 27, 2014, in Washington, D.C.

2013 Cozzarelli Prize Recipients

Class I (Physical and Mathematical Sciences):

"The prevalence of earth-size planets orbiting sun-like stars," by Erik A. Petigura, Andrew W. Howard, and Geoffrey W. Marcy

Link: http://www.pnas.org/content/110/48/19273.full

Class II (Biological Sciences):

"Task-related 'cortical' bursting depends critically on basal ganglia input and is linked to vocal plasticity," by Satoshi Kojima, Mimi H. Kao, and Allison J. Doupe

Link: http://www.pnas.org/content/110/12/4756.full

Class III (Engineering and Applied Sciences):

"Gas production in the Barnett Shale obeys a simple scaling theory," by Tad W. Patzek, Frank Male, and Michael Marder

Link: http://www.pnas.org/content/110/49/19731.full

A commentary accompanying this article is available: http://www.pnas.org/content/110/49/19660.full

Class IV (Biomedical Sciences):

"Human placental trophoblasts confer viral resistance to recipient cells," by Elizabeth Delorme-Axford, Rogier B. Donker, Jean-Francois Mouillet, Tianjiao Chu, Avraham Bayer, Yingshi Ouyang, Tianyi Wang, Donna B. Stolz, Saumendra N. Sarkar, Adrian E. Morelli, Yoel Sadovsky, and Carolyn B. Coyne

Link:  http://www.pnas.org/content/110/29/12048.full

Class V (Behavioral and Social Sciences):

"Historical collections reveal patterns of diffusion of sweet potato in Oceania obscured by modern plant movements and recombination," by Caroline Roullier, Laure Benoit, Doyle B. McKey, and Vincent Lebot

Link: http://www.pnas.org/content/110/6/2205.full

A commentary accompanying this article is available: http://www.pnas.org/content/110/6/1982.full

Class VI (Applied Biological, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences):

"Neonicotinoid clothianidin adversely affects insect immunity and promotes replication of a viral pathogen in honey bees," by Gennaro Di Prisco, Valeria Cavaliere, Desiderato Annoscia, Paola Varricchio, Emilio Caprio, Francesco Nazzi, Giuseppe Gargiulo, and Francesco Pennacchio

Link: http://www.pnas.org/content/110/46/18466.full

PNAS is one of the world's most-cited multidisciplinary scientific journals.  It covers the biological, physical, and social sciences and mathematics and publishes cutting-edge research reports, commentaries, reviews, perspectives, colloquium papers, and actions of the Academy.  PNAS appears weekly in print, and daily online as PNAS Early Edition.  Newly published papers are listed at www.pnas.org/content/early/recent.

For more information about PNAS or the NAS, visit www.pnas.org or www.nasonline.org.

While other UT PGE students competed this spring in Society of Petroleum Engineering’s (SPE) Regional Paper Contest held in Houston, M.S. Student Daniel Sanchez-Rivera was preparing for a paper contest of a different kind – an SPE international paper competition held in Krakow, Poland.

The fifth annual East Meets West International Student Petroleum Congress and Career Expo is hosted by the AGH University of Science and Technology, located in Krakow. Sanchez-Rivera placed first in the Expo’s student paper contest, which was comprised of participants from 20 colleges and universities from all over the world.

The trip to Poland was not his first chance to present his research on a global scale. In January 2012, he traveled to Saudi Arabia to showcase his research on pore-scale modeling at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

Sanchez-Rivera’s project for his trip to Poland, titled “Reservoir Simulation and Optimization of CO₂ Huff-and-Puff Operations in the Bakken Shale,” is part of his M.S. research. He says competing in the SPE local paper contest in January gave him the feedback he needed to succeed in Krakow.

“The valuable input of the judges and supervisors, as well as many additional hours of practice, allowed me to vastly improve my presentation and present a much refined version in Poland,” says Sanchez-Rivera. “This trip was a fantastic opportunity to display the quality of the research that is done at UT PGE. It was one of those experiences that transform daily work into meaningful results and lasting memories.”

Dr. Balhoff, Sanchez-Rivera’s graduate advisor, is proud to see one of his students win a prestigious research competition.

“Both Dr. Mohanty {Sanchez-Rivera’s other graduate advisor} and I are excited he received first place for his outstanding research and presentation skills,” says Balhoff. “I have been working with Daniel since he was an undergraduate student and have enjoyed watching him grow into a thriving researcher.”

UT PGE students recently traveled to the oil and gas capital to compete in the 2014 SPE Gulf Coast Regional Paper Contest, held at the University of Houston. The paper contest is an annual event that brings together undergraduate and graduate students who each present on a topic of their choosing to a panel of industry judges.

During this year’s regional contest, PGE had two students competing in each division (B.S., M.S. and Ph.D.) and five of these students placed in the Top 3. The students, who placed in the contest, include:

B.S.:

• Jason Camacho—2^nd place
• Kellyn Schmitz—3^rd place

M.S.:

• Joseph Tansey—1^st place
• Mahmood Shakiba—2^nd place

Ph.D.:

• Yashar Mehmani—2^nd place

“I'm very proud to have been able to represent our department at the SPE regional paper contest,” said Tansey, who placed first in the M.S. division. “Credit and thanks must go to Dr. Balhoff, Dr. DiCarlo, and all the others who invested their time and expertise, for helping me to prepare for the event.”

Tansey will also travel to the Netherlands this fall to compete at the international contest at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE), held in Amsterdam. He said he hopes to bring UT PGE another first place prize.

This is the second year in a row that UT PGE students have accounted for five of the nine awards. SPE Faculty Advisor David DiCarlo said he is thrilled about the students’ performance.

“The students all worked very hard, with three separate practice sessions in front of faculty members this spring over two months,” DiCarlo said. “We are also lucky to have a dedicated faculty who are interested in students’ performance outside of the classroom, and our staff in helping to organize all of our practices and events.”

UT PGE is pleased to announce Arletta Tompkins, the department’s long-standing undergraduate academic advising coordinator, has been awarded the University’s Outstanding Staff Award. The award honors staff members who have a significant impact on the university and demonstrate a commitment to the university’s core purpose and values.

The Outstanding Staff Award is given to just 30 staff members in the UT Austin community each year. Tompkins, who received her 20-year service certificate in early 2013, is well known in the UT PGE community for her willingness and dedication to help students succeed in their academic careers.

This award is one of three that Tompkins has received within the past year. In the fall, she received the prestigious Tany Norwood Award by the UT Austin Friar Society. Tompkins also accepted the PGE Department’s Staff Excellence Award in 2013.

“Arletta is an outstanding ‘mother’ to our undergraduates, many of whom say they would not have made it through college if it had not been for her,” said Sandy Taylor, UT PGE executive assistant. “We are extremely pleased that Arletta’s service and dedication to our students is being justly rewarded.”

Tompkins will receive the award at the President’s Staff Awards ceremony on Wednesday, May 7, 2014 at 10 a.m. in the Lady Bird Johnson Auditorium at the LBJ Museum and Library.

UT PGE Professor and Associate Department Chair Carlos Torres-Verdin will receive The Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts’ (SPWLA) 2014 Gold Medal for Technical Achievement Award, a prestigious and international recognition, at the 55^th Annual Logging Symposium in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on May 18, 2014.

SPWLA is a nonprofit group dedicated to advancing the science of petrophysics and formation evaluation, and applying these techniques to the exploitation of gas and oil. Operating globally, SPWLA plays a major role in strengthening petrophysical education and providing information to scientists in petroleum industries.

The honor is given to an individual who has offered valuable technical contributions to the sciences of petrophysics, well-logging and log interpretation. Torres-Verdin is the youngest person ever to be selected for this award, and he is the first University of Texas at Austin professor to receive it. Torres-Verdin is now among a select group of scientists who have changed the formation evaluation field, including: H.G. Doll, Monroe Waxman, E.C. Thomas and G.E. Archie.

“I knew our group was spearheading unique research results, but I was surprised how fast the award came to me,” said Torres-Verdin. “Although almost all the researchers who have won in the past received the award for individual work, but from my end it was a group effort: graduate students, staff and post-docs. As a result of our hard work, multiple original, applicable contributions have been made to the industry in the fields of formation evaluation, well logging and petrophysics.”

Roland Chemali, Chairman of the SPWLA Award Committee, said Torres-Verdin received the award due to his leadership and vast number of accomplishments in the field.

“When Professor Carlos Torres-Verdin joined the faculty at UT Austin, he had a vision for developing models describing the wellbore-formation dynamical interactions, and how they are captured by the modern logging sensors,” said Chemali. “This ambitious objective sounded unrealistic to many of us, but 14 years later he has delivered on that vision and continues to forge ahead. Perhaps more importantly, Professor Torres-Verdin has mentored and graduated a great number of engineers and geoscientists who are transforming our industry for the better.”

With more than 130 published peer-reviewed papers, Torres-Verdin is not a stranger to receiving prestigious awards. In 2008, he received the Formation Evaluation Award from the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and in 2006 was granted the Distinguished Technical Achievement Award from SPWLA.

With an almost perfect GPA, a long and impressive list of activities and honors, plus three industry internships under her belt, it is no surprise junior Tara Sharma is among the six honorees receiving the prestigious 2014 President’s Leadership Award.

The University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering rose to the top 10 in U.S. News & World Report's 2015 graduate program rankings, strengthening the school’s position as one of the nation’s elite engineering schools.

The school moved up one spot from the previous year. UT Austin’s aerospace, chemical, civil, computer, environmental and mechanical engineering programs all ranked in the nation’s top 10, according to U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings released this morning. Petroleum engineering programs are not currently ranked by the news organization.

More than 2,100 students are currently enrolled in the Cockrell School’s 13 graduate degree programs, where they work side-by-side with world-renowned faculty. The school’s 27 research centers and affiliated research units provide graduate students with the opportunities to focus on various high-demand areas, including but not limited to wireless networking, nanomanufacturing, energy, transportation, biomedical and petroleum engineering.

The boost in graduate rankings comes at a significant time for the Cockrell School. Last month, the school announced that four faculty members were elected to the esteemed National Academy of Engineering (NAE), the highest number among universities nationally in 2014. And in January, the school announced a $20 million gift from the Mulva Family Foundation that will help build the new Engineering Education and Research Center, a 430,000-square-foot facility that will be dedicated to interdisciplinary teaching and research and will transform the UT Austin campus.

U.S. News & World Report's engineering graduate program rankings are based on student acceptance rates, faculty/student ratios, research expenditures, reputation among engineers in industry and academia, the number of doctorate degrees produced, the percentage of faculty elected to membership in NAE and entrance exam scores.

This year, in addition to the Cockrell School’s ranking, UT Austin's graduate schools in business, education, geosciences and law are all ranked in the top 15 nationally, in U.S. News & World Report’s 2015 edition of “Best Graduate Schools.”