Two key themes have underpinned the advancement of human society: innovative new technologies and an abundance of energy. The people working at the intersection of these two themes continue to shape and influence our collective future. These people are "Energy Influencers."
However, living the life of an Energy Influencer takes a lot of grit and passion. It involves keeping one’s cool in a hyper-cyclical industry, working in extreme environments, and providing data-driven counter-arguments to energy skeptics. It also involves being a responsible citizen who strives for environmental sustainability and adds value to the industry as well as society.
Doing all the above, while one is still under 35, calls for special recognition. The Way Ahead—a publication of, for, and by energy young professionals—is proud to announce the "TWA Energy Influencers 2020," who through their actions and impact, help articulate the "North Star Vision" of our industry.
-Asif Zafar, Editor-in-Chief, TWA Editorial Committee
[Detailed bios of the influencers are given below the table.]
| Wassem M. Alward, Schlumberger Wassem is an established geoscientist from Iraq who actively spreads his knowledge and expertise through publications, training courses, volunteer platforms, and LinkedIn. |
| Nayef Alyafei, Texas A&M University Qatar Nayef is a young and inspiring professor who has authored a textbook and leads research and STEM initiatives at his university, acting as a role-model for students of all ages. |
| Mervin Azeta, Schlumberger Mervin is an award-winning Nigerian energy professional whose passion for sustainable development, youth engagement, and gender representation in energy industry has led her to speak at various forums, including the World Energy Council. |
| Andrew Coit, NOV Andrew is a multilingual drilling automation manager who serves in the Houston River Oaks Chamber Orchestra of Houston, and cofounded a Texas-based venture capital fund investing in promising startup/micro-cap companies. |
| Israel Guevara, Glouphi Israel is a petroleum engineer turned data scientist who leads the Energy4me initiative in Colombia by combining his expertise with pedagogical strategies to develop and improve industry-community relationship. |
| Yana Korneeva, Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov Yana is the head of psychology department at her university and her research on psychological wellbeing and safety of oil and gas professionals has contributed to the development of international standard ISO 35101 for working in the arctic. |
| Alejandro Lerza, Chevron Alejandro is a long-time dedicated SPE member, serving as a technical journal reviewer and delivering lectures to school and university students to enlighten them about the industry, while working in diverse oil and gas projects across the globe. |
| Wai Li, University of Western Australia, and Oilchemleader Wai is an ambitious PhD candidate whose pioneering research work with environmentally friendly drilling fluids has resulted in numerous patents, publications, and recognitions from Chinese and Australian governments. |
| Shubham Mishra, Schlumberger Shubham is a passionate animal rights activist who won acclaim from an Indian NOC, and founded PEACE—a society allied with PETA to prevent animal cruelty. |
| Ankesh Nagar, Cairn Oil & Gas Ankesh is an innovative problem solver whose work in well stimulation improved performance tremendously and become the standard operating procedure in his organization. |
| Guillaume Navez, Total Guillaume is a dynamic drilling manager at Total who has consistently and fervently volunteered his time for numerous SPE initiatives and committees including cofounding the “Beyond the Borders” initiative for SPE young professionals. |
| Joschka Röth, RWTH Aachen University Joschka is a PhD candidate who serves as a youth spokesperson in Germany, and is involved with numerous student causes, including helping international students overcome language barriers. |
| Pushpesh Sharma, Inveniam Asset Management Pushpesh is an active and self-driven energy professional who helped develop an incubator at his university to promote research and innovation. |
| Scarlett-Nicole Tucker, Freudenberg Oil & Gas Technologies Scarlett-Nicole has created significant impact in her company, the energy industry, and the society, at a very young age, all while battling cancer. |
Wassem M. Alward, Schlumberger
Wassem M. Alward is senior geoscientist at Schlumberger based in the Middle East with more than 8 years of experience in different exploration and production (E&P) domains. He possesses a wide range of expertise in the subsurface disciplines. He has participated in many national and international conferences and workshops and has published technical papers on advanced reservoir characterization methods and showcased some first-time applications in petrophysics. He is a peer reviewer for petroleum-related journals such as Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering and Journal of Mathematical Geosciences.
A member of SPE since 2012, Alward volunteers with SPE in many ways—as an eMentor, competition judge, PetroBowl quiz writer, member of several SPE committees, and recently was appointed to join the board of SPE Digital Energy Technical Section as administrative chair. He is certified NExT instructor and regularly teaches courses in geology, petrophysics, and reservoir engineering to E&P companies; in 2019, he delivered training courses to more than 100 subsurface professionals from different national and international oil companies in Iraq. The courses included domain- and software-related topics such as integrated reservoir management, formation testing, advanced petrophysical evaluation, advanced wireline, and logging-while-drilling and reservoir modeling.
Alward also continuously shares his knowledge on LinkedIn where he has more than 4,500 followers. He received his bachelor's degree in geology in 2010 from the University of Baghdad and his master’s degree in petroleum engineering from Heriot-Watt University, where he studied as a recipient of Chevening Scholarship, the UK government’s international awards program.
Nayef Alyafei, Texas A&M University Qatar
After completing his PhD in petroleum engineering from Imperial College London in 2015, Nayef Alyafei joined Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMUQ) as an assistant professor. As a 31-year old, he is the youngest faculty in the department. He recently published his first textbook Fundamentals of Reservoir Rock Properties, as well as two educational magazines.
Alyafei is considered a role model by several students due to his outstanding service in teaching, research, and outreach. He plays an active role in providing guidance to the student body and is one of the enablers at the TAMUQ SPE student chapter. Alyafei won TAMUQ’s Teaching Excellence Award and the TAMU Association of Former Students Teaching Award in 2019 as the youngest faculty ever to receive these awards, and also the first time for an assistant professor to receive them.
With his ability to present challenging engineering and fundamental concepts in a lucid manner, Alyafei is considered an inspirational teacher by his students. In the classroom, his enthusiasm and teaching skills are readily apparent, and this creates an inspiring learning environment for the students. His contributions strengthened the reputation of TAMUQ in Qatar and regionally. He regularly leads many of the university’s STEM initiatives, helping the university recruit the highest quality Qatari and other students to TAMUQ.
In a short time, Alyafei generated more than $2.5 million in research grants. He leads the research group at TAMUQ that focuses on understanding multiphase flow in porous media at the micro and macro scales; in particular, on wettability and spontaneous imbibition studies both experimentally and numerically.
Mervin Azeta, Schlumberger
Mervin Azeta is a young passionate engineer who excels in her career in energy and contributes immensely to transform the perception of the energy industry. She has a sterling academic CV and has seen a rapid rise in career across Africa and beyond at Schlumberger. Outside work, she sits on the boards of several organizations, including the World Energy Council’s Future Energy Leaders Program.
Azeta’s thought leadership and provocative arguments in global energy forums and on networking sites such as LinkedIn have opened up relevant dialogues around energy and policy. An example is when she represented Africa in the Ministerial Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia earlier this year. It was the first Ministerial Forum convened by the International Energy Agency and Africa Union (AU) Commission to accelerate sustainable energy development in the continent. Azeta represented Schlumberger and intervened in the discourse as a voice of women and youth in the industry. She presented her thoughts on, and solutions to, the issues militating against real progress in Africa. This led to an invitation for her from the AU Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy to join the African Network for Women in Infrastructure.
Azeta’s reputation also led to her being invited to deliver a keynote at the 2019 graduation ceremony of students in her alma mater, Federal Government College, Ibillo. She is a fearless advocate for gender representation in energy and key policy areas in global politics and an avid mentor for her juniors. She has been featured in media publications as an influencer and trailblazer, keenly passionate about sustainable development, gender equality, and youth engagement.
Andrew Coit, NOV
A multilingual, charismatic senior manager of drilling automation at NOV, Andrew Coit uses his people skills and ability to foster positive interactions across organizations to implement new technologies.
Coit has been a key player of NOV’s drilling automation initiative since 2012. Working with product line, engineering, operations, and sales groups to advance the technology, he oversaw various automation projects in North America from a technical sales and project management perspective, including early work in the Bakken and Eagle Ford. His interpersonal skills and technical know-how proved critical to building and maintaining the relationships necessary to increase adoption. He relentlessly championed the potential of automation until ultimately reaching a breakthrough success in a landmark project with BP and Parker Drilling. Coit served as a focal point between various members of the BP Global Wells Organization and drilling engineering teams as well as the Parker Drilling field team during the successful deployment of an unprecedented closed-loop drilling automation package on the North Slope of Alaska. This was a huge leap in proving the viability of drilling automation. Building on this success, he is currently working to implement the same framework at a larger scale in the Middle East while also actively supporting the growth of drilling automation in the North Sea.
Coit is active in several industry groups and is a published author in OnePetro and several editorials. A board member of the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra of Houston, Coit’s other fields of interest include music, art, travel, cooking, culture, skiing, climbing, sailing, and active investing. As a cofounder of a small Texas-based venture capital fund with more than 40 investors, he enjoys seeking out, researching, and investing in promising startup/micro-cap companies. He is currently based in Saudi Arabia.
Israel Guevara, Glouphi
A petroleum engineer turned data scientist, Israel Guevara is a champion for improving industry-community relationship in Colombia. As the Energy4me committee staff leader of the SPE Colombian Section in Bogota, he immensely contributed to energy education by conducting Energy4Me events in five different cities in Colombia, impacting more than 8,000 students and teachers. He played a key role in adapting a pedagogical methodology in organizing and planning these events.
Guevara began his participation with SPE as a volunteer in 2012 in the SPE Caracas Section in Venezuela. Since then he was involved in different environmental and energy education programs in SPE. He was president of Universidad Central de Venezuela SPE Student Chapter, which won the SPE Gold Standard Award for its activities with industry and community participation in 2016.
Since 2017, he implemented data science methods combined with new pedagogical strategies in the Colombian section Enery4Me activities, which led to the development of methodologies to improve relations between the industry and communities. These activities led to reduced rejection of the energy industry in at least 58% of the more than 8,000 people in the communities. It also trained more than 450 young SPE volunteer engineers to improve the industry-community relationship. In 2018, Guevara was the methodology leader of an innovative community relations program called Petrolcopa developed by the SPE Colombia team. He is the coauthor of a SPE technical paper (SPE-195975) that details the method and successes of these events implemented in Colombia. The paper was presented at the 2019 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition in Calgary.
Guevara is currently CEO and founder of a data science startup, which develops artificial intelligence methods aimed at preventing social incidents that may affect the local production of hydrocarbons.
Yana Korneeva, Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov
Yana Korneeva holds a PhD in psychology of work. She is the head of psychology department at the Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov in Arkhangelsk, Russia. She has been contributing to research on the workplace psychological wellbeing and safety of oil and gas professionals working in the Far North and Arctic for 13 years. Her work helps solve the problem of modifying support of shift (fly-in-fly-out) personnel in a risk-oriented manner, and defines the main directions of psychological risk management in professional activities. She took part in nine scientific expeditions to oil and gas fields, in six of which she was the leader. Korneeva is distinguished by the high professionalism of a psychologist, and her innovative thinking and approaches to solving professional problems.
During 2015–2017, together with the personnel management department of a mining company, Korneeva worked on developing a draft psychological unloading room for employees, and psychological trainings were conducted with the heads of the enterprise. The most significant joint development is the psycho-diagnostic complex, which includes profiles for four professional groups. These profiles are necessary to determine the selection criteria for admission to a particular position of the enterprise. Currently, this complex is successfully used in the organization when recruiting personnel for employment or moving to another position.
Korneeva’s research results were included in the development of the international standard ISO 35101: 2017 Petroleum and Natural Gas Industries—Arctic Operations—Working Environment. From 2013 to 2015, she was an expert in the working group "Working environment” of the ISO Arctic Operations subcommittee.
Alejandro Lerza, Chevron
Alejandro Lerza joined SPE while studying his undergraduate degree in petroleum engineering in Central University of Venezuela. Since then, his involvement, leadership, and influence within SPE, the industry, and the communities he works with have grown tremendously.
Lerza served in different SPE board member positions for student chapters, regional sections, and study groups in Venezuela, Argentina, and US. He has served as a technical committee member for many prestigious international SPE conferences such as Unconventional Resources Technology Conference, Latin American and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference, Canada Unconventional Conference, and SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition. His contributions have helped toward guaranteeing the high-quality of technical program expected by the conference attendees.
Lerza serves as a technical journal reviewer for SPE, and is also an SPE Ambassador Lecturer. SPE Ambassador Lecturers are SPE young professionals who share their career development in the industry with students at secondary schools and universities. Through his lectures, Lerza shared technical knowledge and advertised the full suite of SPE benefits to students in multiple universities in the US and Argentina. During his 10-year trajectory in the oil and gas industry, Lerza has worked on onshore and offshore projects, and on conventional and unconventional assets in Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, US, and Argentina. He excels in his area of technical expertise and has published six technical papers.
One who cares to improve the community where he lives, Lerza participates in multiple volunteering activities and initiatives. For example, he supports the Houston Food Bank in providing food for people in need, and volunteered for the Rebuilding Houston program after the Hurricane Harvey devastation.
Wai Li, University of Western Australia, and Oilchemleader
Wai Li is a PhD candidate at the School of Engineering in the University of Western Australia. He has done pioneering work in the area of biomass drilling fluid for the oil and gas industry. He has authored more than 20 technical papers, holds three Chinese patents, and received several recognitions from the Chinese and Australian governments, and the International Society for Rock Mechanics. As a consultant expert of Oilchemleader, he contributes to research and engineering projects in drilling fluids, waste treatment, cementing, oilfield chemistry, foam flooding, and hydraulic fracturing. Li is also an associate editor of Petroleum Science, and contributes to processing and reviewing of manuscripts.
Financially supported by the “Key Projects in the National Science & Technology Pillar Program” during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan Period of China, Li conducted research on “Application of Biodiesel in Drilling Fluids” and published a series of journal and conference papers on that topic. These papers opened up a promising research field for high-performance, environmentally friendly drilling fluids. The publication of one of his research papers in JPT is a mark of his achievement in this area of research.
The companies Li consults for benefit from his approach of balancing scientifically new concepts and commercially available engineering practice. For a company lacking previous experience in offshore drilling, for its drilling project in the South China Sea, Li summarized several guidelines for adjusting screening additives for drilling fluids by analyzing foreign literature, which led to the success of the project. Li hopes his experience in the field and engineering design will help bridge the gap between petroleum science and engineering practice, and promote more co-operation between China and Australia.
Wai Li’s current research interests also include mass transport and formation damage in unconventional gas reservoirs containing residual work fluids. He hopes to develop more low-damage and environmentally friendly work fluids with the help of analytical solutions and numerical simulation.
Shubham Mishra, Schlumberger
Shubham Mishra is a dedicated SPE volunteer and a passionate animal rights activist. He was the SPE young professional committee chair for the SPE Mumbai Section consecutively for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 terms. In days when motivation of energy young professionals (YPs) was low, he worked on reviving the enthusiasm among YPs in the section through unique events such as YP-Fest (multiple events organized in different parts of the city in 14 days), clothing donation drive, technical talk series, and women hygiene awareness campaign.
Mishra is passionate about preventing animal cruelty. He founded a student association named People Ending Animal Cruelty and Exploitation (PEACE). PEACE started as a student association for animal rights protection with support from major non-governmental organizations working for a related cause, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Humane Society International (HSI). PEACE aided these organizations in national campaigns such PETA’s Dishoom for freeing animals banished for medical research and HSI’s cage-free eggs, besides working on animal rights in local community.
Mishra is the author of 13 international technical papers and holds 4 patent applications. A highlight of his technical accomplishment, he identified key reservoir challenges for major onshore and offshore fields of an Indian national oil company (NOC) client and earned widespread acclaim from the NOC for his efforts toward identifying possible interventions to increase production as well as ultimate reservoir recoverability. In one of the cases, the success rate of the suggested interventions was as high as 80%. He has consulted for independent oil companies on acquisition and divestiture and is leading the reservoir management aspect of India’s first digital oilfield project. Mishra received the SPE Regional Service Award for South Asia-Pacific Region in 2017.
Ankesh Nagar, Cairn Oil & Gas
A 29-year-old senior petroleum engineer, Ankesh Nagar is an innovative problem solver. He applies his creative thinking to solve complex technical problems.
As a sample, his participation in an innovative approach to a challenging mature field decline helped reverse the decline and led to further production enhancement: During 2016-17, after the commencement of full-field polymer injection in the Mangala field in India, polymer injectors observed multiple injectivity issues, while Aishwarya and Bhagyam fields were having low void replacement ratios for their ongoing water injection. Stimulant chemicals in the form of chelating agents were identified for treating polymer-specific damage along with low-corrosion oxidizers to formulate various recipes in a fast-tracked, yet, effective manner. The parallel search for a new impact technique resulted in Sand Scouring, which was framed using existing resources. Pilots were executed across the three mature fields to revive dead injectors and improve low-injectivity wells.
The pilot was successful with dead wells being revived and sustaining at least three times more than conventional treatments. About 30 wells since the successful pilot were treated, with some showing 500-800% injection performance improvement. This technique is now a standard operating procedure in stimulation for wells with poor injection performance and conformance, and has been discussed at multiple technical platforms in and outside the organization. For his work in the project, Nagar was recognized with Cairn Executive Committee's Choice—Young Leader Award in 2017.
Nagar was also a top 100 finalist of the Economic Times Young Leader Award in 2019, which identifies young managers who are promising corporate young leaders in India. He is a firm believer of publishing and presenting technical work, and has presented papers 14 publications across various SPE platforms, with some of his work valued well among the technical community.
Guillaume Navez, Total
Guillaume Navez is a young leader who contributes to the SPE, the industry, and the community. He’s driven by excellence and is passionate about helping others to push beyond their comfort zones and raise the bar on what can be done.
Within SPE, Navez started out as a student and served as president of the IFP School student chapter and student chapter representative of the SPE France board. For the last decade as a professional, he continued to serve the section in France and in the various countries where he was expatriated, including Congo, Cyprus, and currently South Africa. As the young professional (YP) committee chairperson in France, Navez successfully carried out a revitalization program of the YP community. His out-of-the-box thinking made him a cofounder and leader of the “Beyond the Borders” SPE YP initiative, which consists of a series of coordinated international technical and networking events. The second edition is in progress with nine events planned and 13 SPE sections participating. Navez is currently awards chair of the France section and a member of the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition drilling subcommittee.
Navez’s contributions to the industry have also been exemplary. He demonstrated innovation with his contributions to the subsea driving of well conductors and the use of managed pressure drilling in deepwater. He contributed to the field of human resources management with original work about the inpatriation process in the industry. Navez always found the time to give testimonies about the industry, drilling, and safety to interested stakeholders. Less than 10 years after graduation and at the young age of 33, he became drilling manager at Total.
Beyond his contribution to the industry, Guillaume has a history of being involved in the community. In the recent past, he was involved in refugee professional integration, in particular with French association Kodiko and, when possible, using the SPE network.
Joschka Röth, RWTH Aachen University
A tireless advocate of student and young professional (YP) activities, Joschka Röth has helped organizing several conferences, workshops, and other activities to support SPE and the petroleum engineering profession not only within the SPE German Section (GSSPE), but also in the European region and in the international community.
Originally coming from the automotive industry, Röth holds a master’s degree in applied geosciences and is teaching master’s degree students sedimentary basin dynamics and numerical petroleum system modeling at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. He has made several technical contributions in applied geoscience, specifically in analogue fault modeling and in numerical petroleum system modeling through research work and technical papers.
Röth is one of the main promoters of the Student Technical Congress (STC), a two-day conference organized by the GSSPE and its associated student chapters. The conference is designed for petroleum engineering, drilling engineering, geothermal energy, and geoscience students to present their research. For the past 3 years, Röth is the organizer and moderator of the STC’s YP panel discussion during which YPs share their first job experiences with the student audience. During student and YP events in Germany, Russia, and other countries, he constantly promotes leadership and networking and inspires young students. Recently, he has become an advocate of promoting sustainability in the energy industry by taking part in discussions and integrating this topic in YP workshops and student conferences.
Before his academic career, Röth served as a youth spokesperson and activist in the Bielefeld community of Germany. Today, he supports international students at the RWTH Aachen University with the integration process and to overcome language barriers.
Currently, during the final stage of his PhD thesis, Röth volunteers in the local Covid-19 test center as a medical assistant for non-profit-organizations and helps to reduce the impact of the current coronavirus outbreak.
Pushpesh Sharma, Inveniam Asset Management
Pushpesh Sharma is an active energy professional who continuously strives toward innovation and sustainability. The biggest impact he made was to help develop an incubator for research and innovations at University of Houston (UH) petroleum engineering department.
Sharma was the first graduate student to join the subsurface research laboratory under Konstantinos Kostarelos at Energy Research Park, UH and helped develop the laboratory facilities. His dissertation work on a novel non-thermal heavy oil recovery process provided a green and sustainable alternative to thermal processes and is now a part of a patent application. A carbon capture, utilization, and storage project conducted by his group resulted in an invitation to present at the Applied Energy A+B symposium 2019 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he represented the UH petroleum engineering department. He also worked on a subsurface aquifer remediation project, which was utilized in a full-scale field implementation in Denmark. Through the research facilities, Sharma helped multiple master’s degree and undergraduate students test and implement their research innovations.
Sharma participated in the Downstream Resilience Innovation Challenge 2018, organized by UH Energy and DNV GL. The challenge was organized after the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey on Houston in 2017. The goal was to work with interdisciplinary teams and develop innovative solutions to make downstream processing facilities resilient to extreme weather events. His group won the first prize for their proposal and business plan.
In his current job at Inveniam Asset Management as senior research data scientist, he is working on advanced machine learning methods to improve the optimization of assets and capital investment in energy industry. Sharma has authored five peer-reviewed and two conference papers in fields related to enhanced oil recovery, production data analytics, and environmental remediation. He is also an active volunteer in SPE Gulf Coast Section Data Analytics Study Group.
Scarlett-Nicole Tucker, Freudenberg Oil & Gas Technologies
Scarlett-Nicole Tucker is an optimistic self-starting, young professional who constantly seeks new opportunities for personal and professional growth for herself and those around her.
Tucker is an alumna of Oklahoma State University, where she received her BS degree in chemical engineering and minor in petroleum engineering at only age 20. She found a home in the energy industry with Freudenberg Oil & Gas Technologies and was quickly promoted as project manager to lead and lay the foundation of a new rapid prototype development and testing service. The program, which focuses on the commercialization of new product lines and developments, has achieved critical success and is working with major original equipment manufacturers and service providers to aid with their next-generation tool development projects.
As a champion of diversity in the energy industry, Tucker was instrumental in launching the SPE Gulf Coast Section’s Women in Energy (WIN) 2019 Congress. As the education committee chair, she managed the student and young professional panel sessions and poster competition. She continues to serve on the WIN committee as the events chair.
In addition to her SPE commitments, Tucker gives back to her community by volunteering with the non-profit organization Literacy Now, which helps underserved children in Houston learn to read, and through education, realize their dreams.
Tucker invests boundless integrity and vigor into everything she does and has established herself as a capable young leader, even while battling cancer. Her drive and passion for the energy industry and the people it serves worldwide is inspiring and motivating and she seeks to be a positive example for others to follow.
Evaluation Process Summary
SPE TWA received numerous high-quality nominations from different parts of the world. An exhaustive, three-step evaluation framework was developed by a committee of 12 members, solely set up for this purpose. The committee members brought in varied experiences and represented different education levels, genders, a majority of the continents, and different job roles and sections of the industry.
The nominees were evaluated on various scales such as academic and technical credentials; quality of work experience; awards; positions of responsibility; volunteering; and academic, industrial, and social impact. The result was the selection of 14 TWA Energy Influencers whose candidature had the intrinsic qualities of going above and beyond.
A special recognition of thanks to TWA Committee members Carter Clemens, Michael Cronin, Bita Bayestehparvin, Vikrant Lakhanpal, Nihal Mounir, Abdul Saboor Khan, Lavish Garg, Yogashri Pradhan, Subrat Mohanty, Robin Kueh, and Leyla Ramirez for their efforts in the ideation, evaluation, and execution of the initiative.