Chinaza Ikeokwu

Chinaza Ikeokwu is a petroleum engineer, PhD student, and active member of SPE since 2020, currently serving as the SPE Gulf Coast Section Young Professionals Student Coordinator at Texas A&M University. His research integrates petroleum engineering with artificial intelligence to optimize oil and gas production. He earned a First Class Honors degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Port Harcourt before joining Laser Engineering & Resources Consultants Ltd. as a reservoir engineer, contributing to reservoir simulation, production performance analysis, and optimization studies. He later earned an MS in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M University, where his research investigated hydraulic fracture conductivity impairment in shale formations. He is the winner of the SPE DSEATS Africa Region Datathon at NAICE 2025. His current research focuses on machine learning, physics-informed surrogate models, and agentic AI for production optimization and subsurface characterization in unconventional reservoirs.