SPE News

People - March 2022

This section recognizes SPE members accomplishments and positions within the oil and gas industry.

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Tracy Lamb, SPE, CEO of Quantum AI, was appointed senior advisor of regulatory affairs and safety at American Robotics. She has 25 years of experience working in advanced aviation and with unmanned aircraft systems, spearheading safety and regulatory initiatives in the industry. Lamb is a global expert in aviation safety systems and a designated regulatory subject matter expert by the International Civil Aviation Organization and has been inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. As an ISO-qualified lead aviation auditor, Lamb has completed more than 100 formal SMS audits of airlines, charter companies, helicopter operators, maintenance and training organizations, and uncrewed aircraft operators across seven countries. Earlier in her career, Lamb was an international airline pilot, certified flight instructor, corporate jet and charter pilot, and certified commercial UAS pilot.


Nathan Meehan, 2016 SPE President, and president of CMG Petroleum Consulting, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for technical and business innovation in the application of horizontal well technology for oil and gas production. He was among the 111 new members elected to the academy for 2022 and will be formally inducted during NAE’s annual meeting in October. Meehan was previously director of Computer Modelling Group and president of CMG Simulation Foundation. From 2008 to 2020, Meehan worked at Baker Hughes and among other roles was president of GaffneyCline. He serves as a senior advisor to Petro.ai and a member of the board of directors of Ignis H2. Meehan holds a BSc in physics from Georgia Institute of Technology, an MSc in petroleum engineering from University of Oklahoma, and a PhD in petroleum engineering from Stanford University.


Neal Nagel, SPE, and Marisela Sanchez-Nagel, SPE, were appointed adjunct assistant professors at University of North Dakota. Nagel is the chief engineer and principal, and Sanchez-Nagel is the president of Oilfield Geomechanics.

Nagel has more than 35 years of industry experience. He was previously an assistant professor at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and at Southern Illinois University, geomechanics specialist at ConocoPhillips for 20 years, and chief engineer and vice president of engineering at Itasca Houston. An active SPE member, Nagel has held many volunteer positions. He was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2004 and 2016, chief editor of the SPE Monograph on solids injection, and is the immediate past chairman of the SPE Geomechanics Technical Section. He is the author of more than 55 technical papers and has given invited presentations at the events of several professional organizations related to petroleum.

Sanchez-Nagel has more than 25 years of industry experience. She previously worked at PDVSA for 15 years as a geomechanics specialist in areas such as reservoir and drilling geomechanics. She also worked at GMI and was president and general manager of Itasca Houston. Sanchez-Nagel is an SPE Distinguished Member, served as SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2013, and past director of the SPE Geomechanics Technical Section. She was a member of the program committee for the SPE Applied Geomechanics Workshop and 2014 Latin American and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference. Sanchez-Nagel has taught numerous courses throughout her career focusing on geomechanics fundamentals, laboratory testing, and the acquisition of the geomechanical parameters for rock fabric.