Officers for 2021 – 2023:

President: Saad Omar received the B.S.E.E. degree (with highest distinction) from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan, in 2009, the M.S.E.E. and the Ph.D. degree from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA, in 2012 and 2014 respectively. Since 2014, he has been affiliated with Schlumberger-Doll Research, Cambridge, MA, USA. His current research interests include next generation measurement concepts and interpretation schemes for resistivity-based formation evaluation and electromagnetics-based multi-casing corrosion evaluation. Dr. Omar was the recipient of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Doctoral Research Award for 2013–2014. He was also the recipient of Pakistan’s most prestigious Presidential Award, 15 Gold Medals, and the National Talent Scholarship for his record-breaking academic performances. He is an active member of the SPWLA, IEEE, and Golden Key International Honour Society.

 
 

Secretary: Jeffrey Miles is a Principal Research Scientist at Schlumberger-Doll Research Center. He received a PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007. His interests include the modeling and interpretation of all aspects of nuclear physics in the oil field, with emphasis on induced gamma-ray spectroscopy, algorithms for fast modeling and inversion, and machine learning. Jeff is a member of SPWLA.

Vice-President & Treasurer: Sherry Zhu is a Research Scientist Specialist at Aramco Services Company (ASC): Aramco Research Center – Boston. Her current research focuses on the applications of novel polymers and nanoparticles for oil field. Since received a PhD in Chemistry from University of Pennsylvania, Sherry has acquired broad experiences in the R&D and manufacturing of functional materials for chemical and oil field industries. Sherry has co-authored over fifty patents, patent applications, and peer-reviewed papers.

 

Vice-President, Outreach: Richa Sharma currently a program manager leading the effort of Carbon Capture at Schlumberger-Doll Research (SDR). She earned her PhD in chemical engineering and a minor in electrical engineering in 2010 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2011-2012, she was a postdoctoral researcher at DOE-sponsored Molecular Foundry located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Before she join SDR, she studied charge transfer properties of carbon nanomaterials and inorganic chemistry of semiconducting materials. Her technical expertise are in there major areas: (i) spectroscopy, imaging, and sensor systems, (ii) machine learning for material science, and (iii) CO2 mitigation. Her current research focuses on Carbon Capture chemistry & measurements.

Past Officers:

President: Paul Craddock is a Senior Research Scientist in the Applied Math & Data Analytics Department at Schlumberger-Doll Research Center. His research addresses oilfield petrophysics using nuclear, X-ray, infrared spectroscopy, and most recently machine learning methods. He has developed methods to: derive saturation from spectroscopy logs in conventional reservoirs; indicate zones for favorable well placement and production in shale (RPI); combine cuttings and logs for enhanced petrophysics in data-poor shale wells (DRIFTS); and optimize kerogen properties for global shale log-evaluation (TMALI). He received a PhD in chemical oceanography from Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Paul is a member of SPWLA and SPE, and twice a Distinguished Speaker for SPWLA.

Vice-President: Yi-Qiao Song is a scientific advisor at Schlumberger-Doll Research in Cambridge MA. His research involves development of nuclear magnetic resonance and imaging techniques and instrumentation to understand porous materials and complex fluids. One of his current areas of interest is the Bayesian theory, uncertainty, and machine learning for automation and applications. He is a fellow of American Physical Society, and a member of the Editorial Boards of Journal of Magnetic Resonance and Chinese Journal of Magnetic Resonance. Dr. Song has published over 150 papers in scientific journals and awarded over 50 patents.

Vice-President, Outreach: Lin Liang is a scientific advisor at Schlumberger-Doll Research Center in Cambridge, USA. He joined Schlumberger in 2002 after receiving a Ph.D. from Peking University, China. His research focuses on integrated interpretation and inversion of multiphysics, multiscale measurements with applications to formation evaluation and reservoir characterization problems for the oil industry, covering a variety of data including electromagnetic, seismic, porous medium fluid flow, sonic, dielectric, NMR, and other relevant geophysical measurements obtained from downhole and ground surface. His latest interest is automating log interpretation and geological model building by leveraging machine learning techniques.

President: Ravinath Kausik K.V. is a Senior Research scientist at Schlumberger-Doll Research in Cambridge, USA where he has focused on the development of novel NMR and petrophysical techniques for porous media, especially unconventional shale gas and tight oil formations. His work has led to the development of techniques such as TGIP-NMR and RPI for unconventional plays. He has also worked on the development of next generation NMR diffusion and relaxation measurements for both laboratory and downhole applications. He has served as a SPWLA distinguished speaker both in 2015-16 and 2016-17. He obtained a M.Sc. from IIT Madras, India and Ph.D. degree in physics from Universität Ulm, Germany. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara before joining Schlumberger-Doll Research in 2009. He has co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed publications and several patent applications and is a scientific reviewer for more than 10 international journals.

Vice-President: Ms. Kowan is currently a Geomechanics Advisor at Baker Hughes. She has over 12 years’ experience enabling operators to drill safer, more cost-effective wells and plan field development by reducing non-productive time (NPT) due to wellbore instability and improving production. Ms. Kowan has expertise in unconventional reservoirs, pore pressure prediction, stress constraint, wellbore stability, fracture permeability and compaction. Ms. Kowan began her career as a Geomechanics Associate at GeoMechanics International (GMI) in 2005 before being promoted to Specialist and Advisor positions at GMI and Baker Hughes. From 2016 to 2018, she ran her own successful consulting company, J. Kowan Consulting, LLC, before re-joining Baker Hughes in 2018. Ms. Kowan earned a Master of Science in Geology from Brown University and a Bachelor of Science in Geology from Rutgers University. She currently serves as the Vice President of the Boston Chapter of the SPWLA and previously served as Secretary.

Treasurer: Tancredi Botto is a Principal Research scientist at Schlumberger-Doll Research, where he has contributed to and initiated a number of research projects based on nuclear technologies. Among those, he has developed and field tested a novel deep-reading density imager based on naturally occurring cosmic rays. He is also involved in nuclear modeling and microwave sensor research. Tancredi holds a PhD from the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (1999) and a M.Sc. from the University of Genoa, Italy. Prior to joining Schlumberger in 2005 he worked on experimental nuclear physics as a Research Scientist at the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science.

Vice President, Outreach 2017 – 2018: Sushil Shetty is currently an MBA student at the The Wharton School. Prior to that he was Senior Research Scientist at Schlumberger-Doll Research Center, where he worked from 2009-2018, conducting research on modeling and optimization workflows for analyzing well logging data.  He actively worked on commercial prototyping of the workflows in collaboration with oil & gas operators. Sushil received a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He was SPWLA Distinguished Speaker 2017-2018.

President 2015 – 2017: Andrew E. Pomerantz is the Geochemistry Program Manager at Schlumberger-Doll Research. His research focuses on the development of novel techniques to characterize the chemical composition of kerogen and asphaltenes, including methods in mass spectrometry, X-ray spectroscopy, and infrared spectroscopy. That molecular information is used to understand fundamental physical and chemical processes in petroleum such as asphaltene compositional grading and storage and transport in shales. He graduated from Stanford University with a PhD in chemistry in 2005 and has co-authored 50 peer-reviewed publications.