Biographical note

Dr. Emad Walid Al Shalabi is currently a research and teaching associate at Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He holds BSc, MSc, and PhD degrees, all in petroleum engineering. Obtaining his PhD from The University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Al Shalabi has authored and co-authored more than 40 scientific journal papers, conference proceedings, and delivered several presentations at international conferences. His research interests are focused on enhanced/improved-oil recovery techniques (EOR/IOR), reservoir engineering, asphaltene precipitation and modelling, tight unconventional resources, and reservoir simulation and modelling. He serves as a reviewer for reputable international journals, including the SPE Journal, the SPE Reservoir Engineering and Evaluation, and the Journal of petroleum science and engineering. Dr. Al Shalabi has been awarded a number of educational and research awards such as the International Well Control Forum (IWFC) certificate during his Bachelor Study (December 2008). He has been an SPE member since 2006. Dr. Kamy Sepehrnoori is a professor in the Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Texaco Centennial Chair in Petroleum Engineering. His research interest and teaching include computational methods, reservoir simulation, simulation of unconventional reservoirs, enhanced oil recovery modeling, flow assurance modeling, naturally fractured reservoirs, high-performance computing, and CO2 sequestration. He has been teaching at The University of Texas for over 35 years and has graduated more than 230 MS and PhD students under his supervision working mainly in the areas of reservoir simulation and enhanced oil recovery modeling. For the last several years, he has been supervising a research group in simulation of unconventional reservoirs (shale gas and tight oil reservoirs). Sepehrnoori’s research team along with his colleagues have been in charge of development of several compositional reservoir simulators (i.e., UTCOMPRS, UTCHEMRS, and UTGEL). Also, more recently, he supervised the development of a software package for embedded discrete fracture modeling for application in naturally and hydraulically fractured reservoirs. He has published more than 650 articles in journals and conference proceedings in his research areas. He has also coauthored three books, which have been published by Elsevier. Sepehrnoori is the director of the Reservoir Simulation Joint Industry Project in the Center for Subsurface Energy and the Environment. He holds a PhD degree in petroleum engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.