The collaborative series between TWA and SPE Student Chapters, “TWA Student Chapter Spotlight,” aims to feature award-winning SPE student chapters from around the world. Each article in the series will spotlight a student chapter and share some of the chapter’s main events and activities recently held.
Texas A&M University Chapter
- Presidential Award for Outstanding Student Chapter 2020
- Date Established: 01 Aug 1932
The SPE student chapter at Texas A&M University (TAMU-SPE) is a premier student organization within the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University. As a recognition of its excellence, TAMU-SPE received the 2019-2020 Presidential Award for Outstanding Student Chapter, which is awarded only to the top 5% percent of student chapters globally within SPE.
In 2019, TAMU-SPE created a new event, "Aggies Invent–Energy Solution," which set a contemporary standard in size and scope for inaugural, student-conducted technical events. The chapter partnered with Aggies Invent founder Professor Rodney Boehm, the Energy Club at Texas A&M, and the Engineering Entrepreneurship Program to deliver a unique energy-focused Aggies Invent experience (image above).
Aggies Invent is a 48-hour intensive design experience where students in multidisciplinary teams push their innovation, creativity, and communication skills. Each event has a specific theme and is designed in collaboration with industry and faculty. Teams compete for cash awards and the best innovation.
For the Energy Solutions event, 100 students from 15 different majors developed and presented solutions aimed at solving design challenges provided by sponsors BP, Accenture, and ANSYS. After completing their selected design challenge, each team gave a live-stream presentation to a board of judges. Successful teams were encouraged to commercialize their prototypes with patents and offered support from the TAMU Engineering Entrepreneurship Program. This event amplified TAMU-SPE's mission by exposing a much broader cross-section of students to the energy sector’s needs.
Continuing its pursuit of excellence in service, TAMU-SPE expanded the Executive Series event venue, which features the CEO or president of a major energy company speaking to students in a fireside chat interview setting. In October 2019, Darren Woods, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil spent several hours recounting his professional journey with moderator and TAMU-SPE faculty advisor Tom Blasingame. This event proved to be one of the most impactful experiences that TAMU-SPE has ever hosted as attendance included students from all undergraduate and graduate classifications, and faculty. Students from 20 majors were in attendance, ranging from the College of Liberal Arts to Engineering, including contingents from the Student Engineers Council and the Mays Business School, with major contributions coming from freshman students in petroleum, chemical, and mechanical engineering discipline.
The next Executive Series event in March included a corporate leader from the Permian Basin. Travis Stice, CEO and director of Diamondback Energy, shared his unique work and life stories in the ballroom of the university’s Memorial Student Center, the new venue for the event. Stice gave a discourse on career-path guidance and advance, sharing his experience as he built a multibillion dollar company from scratch.
TAMU-SPE has had a decade of dominance, collecting seven SPE president’s awards for the chapter in 10 years. The chapter is committed to the pursuit of technical exchange and networking, but the core commitment remains to serve the larger community and engage in all relevant discussion on energy. For the 2020-2021 term, the chapter will focus on "navigating the storm" caused by COVID-19 with internal and external student support programs, expanding efforts to expose student members to new industry experiences. New programs are being planned in diversity and inclusion, as well as new technical themes such as data analytics.