Hall of Fame History
Inducted 1996
David R. Boylan, Jr. ’43 (Iowa State Univ.)
Dean Emeritus and Professor, School of Engineering, Iowa State University; B.S. Chemical Engineering, 1943; During his twenty-year career in education, research, and administration, David R. Boylan has distinguished himself as a leader committed to standards of excellence in engineering education and development.
Paul Haney ’33 (Black & Veatch)
B.S. Chemical Engineering, 1933 Deceased; For more than fifty years in engineering education, research, consulting and management, Paul D. Haney devoted his career to the improvement, preservation, and proper use of America’s precious water resources.
Charles R. Clark ‘68 (Conoco)
Retired in 1996 as Manager of Drilling and Production Research. Managed research projects in UK, Norway, and US. Member and President of the Advisory Board to the Aging Services Division of the State of Oklahoma DHS 2005 to 2009.
Roy M. Knapp ’63,’69,’73 (OK Univ)
Professor Emeritus of Petroleum & Geological Engineering, University of Oklahoma. Director, Mid-Continent Region, Society of Petroleum Engineers, 2006-2010.
Joseph W. Davison ’43 (Phillips Petroleum)
Retired, Senior Vice President, Phillips Petroleum Company; B.S. Chemical Engineering, 1943; Joseph W. Davison’s accomplishments and leadership during more than forty years with Phillips Petroleum Company were foremost in his company’s becoming a world leader in chemical research.
Dale R. Laurance ’71,’73 (Occidental)
President, Occidental Petroleum; B.S., M.S., Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, 1967, 1971, 1973; Dr. Dale R. Laurence has contributed a great deal to the chemical and petroleum engineering field. His organizational skills and innovations have contributed substantially to the industry.
William C. Douce ’42 (Phillips Petroleum)
Retired, President, Chief Executive, Phillips Petroleum Company; B.S. Chemical Engineering, 1943; After leading Phillips Petroleum Company into the chemicals industry, William C. Douce guided research that expanded the international search for oil and developed new domestic energy supplies.
Paul M. Pankratz ’55 (Dow Chemical)
Retired, Vice President and Director, U.S. Area Operations Dow Chemical U.S.A.; B.S. Chemical Engineering, 1955; For more than thirty years as an engineer and manager of manufacturing, Paul M. Pankratz has helped Dow Chemical remain productive and competitive in the worldwide chemicals and plastics market.
Thomas F. Edgar ’67 (Univ. of Texas)
Associate Dean, College of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin; B.S. Chemical Engineering, 1967; Thomas F. Edgar’s research in process control and optimization, as well as his dedication to students and engineering education, have earned him the respect of chemical engineers throughout the world.
James Russell ‘41 (Russell Petroleum; posthumous)
President, James E. Russell Petroleum, Inc.; B.S. Petroleum Engineering, 1941 Deceased; James E. Russell was a cornerstone of the oil industry throughout his long and distinguished career. His contributions to petroleum engineering in Texas have advanced the state’s oil and gas industry immeasurably.
Inducted 1997
Stanley M. Englund ’50 (Dow Chemical)
Retired, Senior Process Consultant Dow Chemical Company Retired, Midland Engineering Ltd. B.S., Chemical Engineering, 1950; Englund is an international authority in process safety and risk management and, as a consultant for Dow, traveled the world. Englund graduated from Salina High School before serving in the U.S. Navy at the end of World War II. He graduated in 1950 from the University of Kansas with a degree in chemical engineering. In 1951 he earned a master’s in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then began a 42-year career in engineering, research, and plant management with Dow Chemical Company. His leadership in the areas of process engineering and improvement helped make Dow an industry leader in chemical process safety and in several technologies including Saran resins. He has served on numerous national safety-related committees with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Center for Chemical Process Safety. Englund has addressed significant safety challenges facing the chemical industry in China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Israel, Jordan, Peru and Cuba. He has been involved in numerous community activities and organizations as well as service projects in Russia, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Zambia and the United States.
William M. Nofsinger ’55 (Nofsinger, Inc.)
Lieutenant United States Air Force, 1955-1958; Former CPE Advisory Board Member. President of The C.W. Nofsinger Company, Kansas City, Missouri (1959-1978).
George W. Swift ’53,’57,’59 (Univ. of Kansas)
Emeritus Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, The University of Kansas B.S., M.S., Ph.D. Chemical Engineering 1953, 1955, 1957; For more than three decades, George W. “Bill” Swift greatly influenced KU chemical and petroleum engineering students. He was an effective administrator whose leadership skills advanced the CPE department and the university. In engineering practice, theories and models that he developed as a distinguished researcher continue to solve significant problems facing industry and society.
Inducted 1998
Russell B. Mesler, ’48 (Univ. of Kansas)
Emeritus Warren S. Bellows Distinguished Professor, CPE, University of Kansas. Served in the U.S. Navy during World War II; consultant for the Spencer Chemical Company.
Charles E. Sturgeon, ’51 (Vulcan Chemical Co.; deceased)
Inducted 1999
Paul L. Hellman, ’59 (Mobil Oil Co.)
Senior executive of Mobil Oil Corporation, E&P Division.
Kyle D. Vann, ’69 (Koch Industries)
EVP of Koch Industries and CEO of Entergy-Koch LP. Director of PQ Group Holdings, Inc and Enlink Midstream, LLC.
Inducted 2000
John C. Davis, ’58, ’63 (Kansas Geological Survey)
Emeritus Scientist from KGS, served as Univ-Prof of Reservoir Characterization at the Montanuniversität in Leoben, Austria, and William Christian Krumbein Medal recipient.
Robert H. Smith, ’64, ’70 (Black & Veatch-Pritchard)
Retired Executive Vice President and COO Process Division, Black & Veatch Corp. M.S., Chemical Engineering, 1964, Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, 1970; Smith spent 38 years in various aspects of the petroleum and petrochemical industry including research and development, plant operations and engineering and construction. He spent the first 10 years of his career with ARCO (Atlantic Richfield Company), before moving to Fluor Daniel and into management. There, he was process manager on a $900 million refinery expansion and headed up the sales and marketing divisions of the company. Smith retired from Black & Veatch in 2000. He spent seven years there as executive vice president and chief operation officer of the Process Division, where he was known as a great teacher who always spent time explaining the reasoning and rationale behind problem solving.
Inducted 2002
Allyn W. Risley ’72 (Phillips Petroleum Co.)
Vice President, Global Shipping, BG Group. 2011 DESA Recipient.
Inducted 2003
Linda Z. Cook, ’80 (Shell Oil - Canada)
Executive director, Royal Dutch Shell plc B.S., petroleum engineering, 1980; Linda Zarda Cook rose through the ranks in an industry dominated by men to become one of the top executives in one of the top energy companies in the world. As an executive director and member of the board of Royal Dutch Shell plc, she is responsible for Shell's global Gas & Power business, for the Renewable Energy and Hydrogen businesses as well as Shell Global Solutions. Cook also serves as regional managing director for Shell's activities in the Asia Pacific region. Cook joined Shell's Exploration & Production business in Houston as a petroleum engineer in 1980 after graduating from KU. In 1998, after a variety of technical and managerial appointments, she became a member of Royal Dutch Shell's global E&P leadership team based in The Hague, Netherlands. In 2001, Cook was named CEO of Shell's London-based Gas & Power business. In 2003, Cook was appointed director, president and CEO of Shell Canada Ltd. and moved to Calgary, Canada. In mid-2004, Cook was named executive director for Royal Dutch Petroleum and returned to the Netherlands in her current capacity. Cook is routinely recognized as one of the most powerful women executives in the world. She has developed a reputation as a leader who generates respect and wins strong performance, while also presenting Shell's softer side: a commitment to sustainable development and responsible interaction with a variety of stakeholders. Cook is a member of the China Development Forum, the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the board of directors for the Boeing Company. She and her husband, Steven, reside in the Netherlands. They have three children.
Linda Ellis Sims, ’78 (Exxon-Mobil)
Retired North American Base Oil Sales Manager, ExxonMobil. Service on KU Endowment Board of Trustees and KU Alumni Association National Board of Directors.
Inducted 2004
Christine Ehlig-Economides, ’77 (Univ. of Houston) (Inducted in absentee)
Member of the National Academy of Engineering, recipient of SPE Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal, Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty, and Lester C. Uren, Innovative Teaching, and Formation Evaluation Awards. Co-author of Petroleum Production Systems. Member of the Board on Energy and Environmental Systems (BEES), QRI Scholar and Board Member.
Michael J. Economides, ’74, ’76 (Univ. of Houston) (Inducted in absentee)
Michael Economides, one of Houston's leading energy experts, made many contributions, particularly in the technology development of hydraulic fracturing and his perspectives in geopolitics. Economides served as an adviser for numerous companies globally, including China National Offshore Oil Corporation, Italy's multinational oil and gas company ENI and other major global players in Russia and Venezuela. A prolific writer in the petroleum and natural gas fields, Economides published more than a dozen books and hundreds of journal papers. One of his books, "The Color of Oil," is valued by many. He frequently spoke on CNBC and CNN and was quoted extensively by academic and news publications. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Energy Tribune, an online publication, and offered commentary on global energy politics for FuelFix, the energy website at the Houston Chronicle.
As an insightful energy columnist and author with a captivating personality, he was also a very approachable educator. He spent much of his time traveling and collaborating globally- but still had time to devote as an educator. Economides served as a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department from 1999 to 2005; then teaching master’s classes and advising graduate students as an adjunct faculty member in the Petroleum Engineering Department until his death in 2013.
Economides moved to the U.S. as a Fulbright scholar at the age of 19 from Cyprus. He received his BS and M.S in Chemical Engineering from the University of Kansas and then his doctorate in Petroleum Engineering from Stanford University in 1984.
Inducted 2006
Elmer L. Dougherty, ’50 (Univ. of So. California, Maraco, Inc.)
Professor at University of Southern California (1971-1995). Earned Cedric Ferguson and Jon Arps Awards from the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Inducted 2007
Stanley T. Myers ’60 (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International)
Myers earned his B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Kansas in 1960. He took a position with Monsanto after graduation and worked there for 18 years. Then, in a pivotal move, Stan joined Siltec Silicon, a silicon wafer manufacturer, based in Salem, Oregon. He became president and CEO there in 1985, and just a year later he negotiated Siltec’s acquisition by Mitsubishi Materials Corporation. By the time Stan left the company in 1996, its name was Mitsubishi Silicon America Corporation. As SEMI president, Stan has directed the international SEMICON trade expositions, trade missions, market statistics program, international standards programs, economic conferences and government relations program. Myers continued to serve on the SEMI board of directors, a post he was elected to in 1988. He sat on the boards of numerous manufacturing, design and finance companies, and was on the San Jose State Engineering Advisory Board.
Inducted 2009
Edmund H. Fording, Jr. ’59 (Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association)
Ed Fording, a 1959 B.S. Chemical Engineering graduate from the University of Kansas, devoted 44 years to a career in the chemical industry, counting 4 years leave of absence for military service. He served as a senior executive in several companies in US and Germany. The last five years he served as President of the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (SOCMA). SOCMA was founded in 1921 to promote industrial organic chemical capability in the U.S.. By the late 1990’s SOCMA’s member companies were primarily entrepreneurial firms, a growing segment of the industry as big companies downsized. Ed and his wife Jean retired to Charlottesville, Virginia where they take advantage of medical and educational programs offered by the University of Virginia. They devote time to spoiling their eight grandchildren. Ed volunteers for Recording for the Blind and Dyslectic and is active with Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia. He enjoys participating on KU’s CPE Advisory Board, in particular getting to know current students, faculty and recent graduates.
Frank Komin, ’78 (Thums: Texaco, Humble (later Exxon), Unocal, Mobil and Shell)
Frank received his BS degree in Petroleum Engineering from KU in 1978. He joined ARCO upon graduation from KU and, in his early career, worked a variety of Petroleum Engineering assignments involved in oil and gas drilling and field development in Oklahoma, North Texas and offshore Gulf of Mexico. In 1997, Frank and his family moved to Long Beach, California to become Operations Manager for Thums. Frank joined Occidental Petroleum in 2000 as Manager of Production and Development, finally assuming his current position as President and General Manager where he has served for the past eight years. KU’s SPE Chapter was fortunate to tour the Thums facilities on their recent trip to the national SPE Convention in Anaheim held in 2007. Frank and his wife Sharon, a 1979 Kansas State graduate, have four children (ages 26-17) and live in Huntington Beach, California. Their youngest son, Nicholas, is strongly considering pursuing an engineering degree at KU.
John E. McElhiney, ’61 & ’63 (20/20 Reservoir Resources)
John has earned two degrees from CPE, a BSChE in 1961 and a MSChE in 1963. After a year with Esso Research Labs in Baton Rouge he returned to school, this time at the University of Missouri where he earned a PhD in Chem E in 1969. After graduation he started a fruitful career in the petroleum industry at Marathon Oil's Denver Research Center where he worked from 1969 to 1977. He was an integral part of Marathon's very talented reservoir simulation group. In 1978 he started his consulting career with Intercomp Resource and Development. Over the next 5 years he worked on simulation studies around the world as a senior consultant, vice president and senior vice president. In 1984 Scientific Software acquired Intercomp and John became Vice President of the Consulting Division which had 70 professionals performing domestic and international reservoir studies. He also served as Vice President of the Equities Division. He left Scientific Software Intercomp in 1988 to head ICF Resources Denver Regional Office and developed ICF's coal bed methane consulting business. In 1991 he returned to Marathon for 8 years to work as Manager of Refining Technology and Commercial Technology. After retirement from Marathon in 1999, he spent the next two years consulting for Dow Chemical on seawater treatment systems. Since 2000, he has been operating as President of 20/20 Reservoir Resources, consulting with and technical marketing to clients of Marathon’s sulfate removal technology. More than fifty of these plants now operate in the world with over 5 million barrels of water treated daily using plants with processing capacities as large as 400,000 bbls/d. John has been an active member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers serving on many committees and as a Distinguished Lecturer (1985-6) and as an ABET visitor. He has co-authored 19 papers and has one patent. He was a 1997-9 member of the CPE Alumni Advisory Committee.
Inducted 2010
Dawood M. Al-Dawood (Saudi Aramco)
Dawood M. Al-Dawood is the Vice President for Marketing, Supply & Joint Venture Coordination of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco). In this capacity, he oversees Saudi Aramco’s hydrocarbon supply planning, global sales and marketing of crude oil, refined products and LPG, as well as providing coordination oversight to the company’s downstream joint ventures. An executive with more than twenty-five years of experience in the petroleum industry, Al- Dawood has been engaged in almost all aspects of Saudi Aramco’s core oil and gas operations during the course of his career with the company. Al-Dawood joined the company in August 1982. He earned a company-sponsored bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Kansas in 1988. He later earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a Sloan Fellow in 2008. From 2004 to 2006, he was assigned as manager of the Crude Oil Sales and Marketing Department, with an interim acting assignment as general manager of the Drilling and Workover Organization. In early 2006, he was tapped to be the manager of Jiddah Refinery. Al-Dawood was next transferred to Houston, Texas as President and CEO of Aramco Services Company, a wholly owned Saudi Aramco affiliate providing a wide array of services to Saudi Aramco from the North American markets. In June 2008, he briefly served as acting President and CEO of Vela International Marine Ltd., Saudi Aramco’s marine shipping affiliate, before being appointed Executive Director for Marketing Supply & Joint Venture Coordination in September 2008. He was appointed as Vice President and officer of the company in April 2009. Al-Dawood has taken part in several leadership training activities throughout his career, including Saudi Aramco’s Global Business Acumen Program, the Saudi Aramco Management Development Seminar in Washington, DC, Stanford Executive Program at Stanford University; the GE Middle East Senior Executive Program at Crotonville, New York, and the Oxford Energy Seminar.
Inducted 2011
Al Self ’43 (Inducted in absentee)
Al Self and his wife Lila are native Kansans. They met as KU students and married in 1943, the year Al Self earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. In 2000, Self was honored with the School of Engineering’s Distinguished Engineering Service Award. The university awarded him a Distinguished Service Citation in 1997. Later, he was recognized as a life trustee of KU Endowment. Other areas in which the Selfs have supported KU include the Self Graduate Fellowship, the Mossberg Pharmacy Professorship and the Society of Self Fellows. Self was born in 1921 in Ozawkie and earned a chemical engineering degree at KU. After graduation, he worked briefly for York Corp. and Sharples Chemical Co. In 1947, he started Bee Chemical Inc. By 1984 the company had more than 500 employees.
In 1989, Self and his wife, Lila, established the Madison and Lila Self Graduate Program at KUSelf fellows must have superior undergraduate records and must demonstrate the potential to become leaders in their fields. Fellows are asked to commit to a life-long membership in the Society of Self Fellows to mentor the next generation of fellows. The Self program has been the first in the nation to offer graduate students a program of this magnitude. In the next academic year, the program will support 20 fellows. He started Allen Financial Inc. in 1985 after selling Bee Chemical to Morton Thiokol. In 1989 he and three associates founded Tioga International Inc., which manufactures and markets industrial sealants and coatings. Self is president of Allen Financial and chief executive officer and chair of Tioga International. Al Self donated his time for many years to organizations concerned with promoting research in the field of deafness. He served as director of the National Hearing Association from 1978 to 1987.
J. Bert Ladd ‘49 (Inducted in absentee)
Bert grew up in Mid-continent oil country where his father began working on cable tool drilling rigs in his ‘teens after dropping out of school. Jerry Ladd evolved into acquiring his own rudimentary cable tool drilling rig in his 30’s and pursued a career as an itinerate wildcatter. He raised capital for drilling in various local oil prospective areas in Kansas and Oklahoma, choosing sites using very rudimentary early-day geology, usually founded by drilling on top of surface expressed anticlines or perhaps guided by a local farmer’s mention of having seen oil slick on a nearby stream. He never made the ‘big strike’ as did some of the other old timers like Harry Sinclair, Tom Skelly, H. L. Hunt, etc. At age 50 Bert’s father Jerry died in a drilling rig accident.
Bert himself worked as a roustabout on rigs and in the field throughout his ‘teen years and for a year following high school graduation. Having saved enough money he enrolled at K.U. in the Fall of 1942. The following January he passed the exam for enlisting in the Army Air Corp, receiving his pilot’s wings in early 1944, serving in the South Pacific until the end of WW2. He returned to K.U. when he was discharged from service in early 1946 and received his B.S. in Petroleum Engineering in June ’49. He began as a field production/drilling engineer for Texaco in Cut Bank, Montana. As a result of ensuing successful petroleum explorations and acquisitions LPC gained important industry stature among the smaller emerging independents. Seeking important growth capital in bigger chunks LPC responded to a tax-free tender offer by Utah International Inc., a premier mining company, principally coal and copper, who were seeking diversification into oil and gas. In 1976 Utah merged into General Electric Company via a tax-free stock exchange----
at that time this $2.5 billion deal was the largest ever USA corporate merger. LPC thereby became even more active in its new status as an autonomous subsidiary of GE. Bert remained as CEO through 1979 when he resigned his corporate positions to return to world of Independent Operators. At 87 he now says he has not nor will he ever retire, rather he restructures to fit the times of the ‘World’ and of his ‘Life’.
Bert has served on various corporate and institutional boards including Ladd Petroleum Corporation, Utah International, Denver University, Presbyterian Medical Center (Denver), Whiting Petroleum Corporation, The Aksel Johnson Group, a large international privately owned industrial and shipping company in Stockholm. He was active throughout his career in important industry professional organizations including AIME, API, IPAA. In 2006 Bert was honored with the Distinguished Engineering Service Award from KU. Also in 2009 he was inducted into The Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas Association ‘Hall of Fame’. In 1946 Bert married Ann Moorhead of Sabetha, Ks., his senior high school classmate. Interestingly Ann served as K.U. Chancellor Deane Mallot’s personal secretary during Bert’s college years. They had two children, Jamie and Jerry, both of whom live in Denver. Ann died in 1972. Bert now lives in Los Angeles with Doris, his wife of 36 years.
J. Tim Hood, ’62 (U.S. Navy Rear Admiral)
Mr. Hood is a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, having served 33 years at sea and in weapon acquisition jobs in Washington DC. His at sea time was all in destroyers, including placing in commission and commanding the Navy’s newest Guided Missile Destroyer, USS CALLAGHAN. Ashore, his assignments focused on the acquisition of surface ships, weapons and combat systems. He was Program Manager for the Navy’s Aegis ships, Deputy Commander of the Naval Sea Systems Command, and Program Executive Officer for Theater Air Defense with responsibility for developing ballistic missile defense capability in the Navy. All these assignments involved managing multi-billion dollar annual procurement budgets.
Following his Navy career, he became a Vice President at the Lockheed Martin Corporation, where he was responsible for all Aegis activity within Lockheed Martin, including new capabilities, ballistic missile defense, and international Aegis ship programs in Japan, Spain, and Korea. He retired from Lockheed Martin in July 2003 after 7 years.
Mr. Hood continued his involvement in weapons acquisition and ballistic missile defense as a consultant with several clients in various Department of Defense related activities. He graduated from the University of Kansas in 1962 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering. He also holds two engineering degrees from the Naval Postgraduate School, Electrical Engineer and Master of Science in Electrical Engineering. He attended the Naval War College where he was awarded the J. William Middendorf III Award for Advanced Research. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi and the Surface Navy Association, and a former member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Naval Institute, and the Navy League. He has served on the Advisory Board to the Dean of Engineering at the University of Kansas, and in 1996 was awarded the Distinguished Engineering Service Award.
Inducted 2012
Mark F. Heinrich,’89 (US Navy Rear Admiral)
Rear Admiral Mark Heinrich became commander, Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) and 46th Chief of Supply Corps on July 22, 2011. Previously, he served as commander, NAVSUP Global Logistics Support headquartered in San Diego, California. Heinrich's additional flag officer assignments include extensive joint experience. He served as director, Logistics Operations and Readiness (J-3/4) for the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Va. He deployed to Kuwait from June to December 2008 as director of the United States Central Command Deployment and Distribution Operations Center at Camp Arifjan, where he applied deployment and distribution expertise to enable the planning and execution of joint and combined force military operations. His first flag officer assignment was as commander, Defense Supply Center Richmond, Va., the lead supply center for aviation within DLA. The center is now known as DLA Aviation.
Heinrich is a native of Southern California. He was commissioned in the Navy Supply Corps following graduation from the Naval Academy in May 1979 with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering. He received his master's degrees in Business Administration and Petroleum Management from the University of Kansas in 1989. He is also a graduate of the Kellogg Graduate School of Management Advanced Executive Program. He is a member of the Defense Acquisition Corps and a Distinguished MBA Alumni Award recipient of the KU School of Business. Heinrich's sea tours included duties as assistant supply officer of USS Kinkaid (DD 965), and supply officer of USS Gridley (CG 21) and USS Constellation (CV 64).
His additional shore assignments included serving as force supply officer on the staff of Commander, Naval Surface Forces; commanding officer of the Naval Petroleum Office; supply officer of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island; executive assistant to the commander, Naval Information Systems Management Center; and special assistant for pollution prevention and compliance in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Installations and Environment). His personal decorations include two Defense Superior Service Medals, two Legions of Merit, a Defense Meritorious Service Medal, and various other awards. He is a qualified Surface Warfare Supply Corps officer and a Naval Aviation Supply officer.
Lanny G. Schoeling, ’83, ‘93 (Kinder Morgan CO2 Company)
Lanny has 30 years of experience in technical and managerial positions. Currently, he is Vice President of Engineering and Technical Management for Kinder Morgan CO2 Company. Previously, he was Chief Reservoir Engineer for unconventional resources at Shell E & P, responsible for developing and managing the commercial reservoir development team and identifying potential CO2 candidate reservoirs within the USA. Significant service to the CPE department came as Director of the North Mid-continent Regional Lead Organization, part of the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council (1995-97), and as an enhanced oil recovery engineer for the Tertiary Oil Recovery Project (1983-97).
Lanny has been active in the Society of Petroleum Engineers, serving as a Distinguished Lecturer (1995-96), and frequently has been an Enhanced Oil Recovery panelist at conferences and on program committees for industry meetings. He was the Technical Program Chairman for the SPE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium held in Tulsa just this month. He earned his Ph.D. from KU in 1993, his M.S. in Chemical Engineering from KU in 1983 and a B.S. in Chemistry from Pittsburg State in 1980. Lanny has diligently served as a member of the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Advisory Board since 2004. He led the Board as Vice Chair in 2007 and Chair in 2008. Of particular note has been his leadership as an advocate for the petroleum engineering program. In this regard, he has twice been principal author of Board letters to the Dean of Engineering and has recruited leaders of the petroleum industry to support the Board requests for resources needed by the PE program.
Lanny met Jill (his wife) in college and has been married to her for nearly 32 years, living in Lawrence for the first 17 years of their marriage. Jill also went to the University of Kansas where she graduated with a Pharmacy degree, and is
now retired in Katy, Tx. Jill and Lanny have two beautiful daughters (Carissa and Maggie) who were born in Lawrence. They are now professionals (Carissa is a Radiology Tech for Katy Memorial Hospital and Maggie is a Chemical Engineer for Chevron Phillips). Lanny’s younger brother is a graduate of the University of Kansas Medical School “MD” and practices in Pittsburg, Kansas. Lanny also has a son-in-law who is a mechanical engineer with Chevron Phillips.
Inducted 2013
Kyle A. Mathis,’90 (Chevron Phillips Chemical Company)
Kyle A. Mathis graduated from KU with a BS degree in chemical engineering in 1990. He received an MBA degree from the University of Houston in 1995. Kyle began his career with Phillips Petroleum Company in 1990. He worked in various manufacturing engineering capacities in the polyolefins business until 1995. Kyle then progressed through roles in sales, supply chain, marketing and planning. Following the formation of the Chevron Phillips Chemical Company joint venture in 2000, Kyle served as the Worldwide Polyethylene Planning Manager. In 2002, Kyle was responsible for the global Paraxylene business and in 2006, he managed the global styrenics business. In 2011, he was named as General Manager, Engineering Polymers, the position he now holds. In this position, he is responsible for the global engineering polymer business for Chevron Phillips and manages an international staff of 110 employees. Chevron Phillips is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of olefins, polyolefins, specialty chemicals, and engineering polymers.
Kyle’s wife KaRan is with him tonight. She earned a BS degree in chemical engineering and a BA degree in the Plan II Program from the University of Texas and her law degree from the University of Houston. KaRan was recently appointed to the University of Texas chemical engineering advisory board. She is currently the managing counsel for BP’s global upstream intellectual property. Kyle has grown to enjoy watching KU beat UT in basketball on a regular basis and KaRan returns the favor during football season. Kyle and KaRan make their home in The Woodlands, TX with their two dogs. Kyle has served on the CPE Advisory Board for 21 years. He has consistently provided leadership for the Board having served one term as Chair and several terms on the Steering Committee. He made major contributions to the senior-exit-interview program, was an advocate for improvement of the Department’s strengthening of the safety culture in the educational process, and backing key Department issues such as space, new faculty positions and budget support by contributing to advocacy letters to the Dean.
Inducted 2014
James C. Remsberg, ’57 (Slawson Companies, Inc.)
James C. Remsberg graduated from KU with a BS degree in petroleum engineering in 1957. After graduating from KU, Remsberg started his career at Continental Oil Co. -- the predecessor of Conoco -- working in all phases of petroleum production, including reservoir engineering and enhanced oil recovery. He spent two years at Conoco headquarters, estimating and assigning corporate reserves for west Texas and southeast New Mexico. He also chaired an engineering group that found a way to unitize and thereby optimize recovery from geologically complex reservoirs featuring gravity drainage. Where earlier unitization efforts had failed, these efforts – undertaken in 1964 – succeeded and are still producing profitably today.
Jim has served on the School of Engineering Advisory Board since 1993 and is a longtime member of the KU Endowment Deans Club in support of the KU School of Engineering. He received Distinguished Engineering Service Award (DESA) in 2013 from the University of Kansas School of Engineering. He is a Professional Engineer, licensed in Kansas, and a lifetime member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. He and his wife, Sandy live in Wichita, Kansas.
Patrick R. Oenbring, ’74 (Hawkwood Energy, LLC.)
Patrick Raymond Oenbring graduated from KU with a BS degree in chemical engineering in 1974 and completed the Management Program for Executives from University of Pittsburgh in 1988. After graduating from KU, Patrick was involved in multiple engineering, operations, business development, and project management positions with Conoco Inc. from 1974 to 1997. During this period with Conoco, he had residential assignments in Singapore, Cairo, Calgary, and Lagos, along with US residential assignments in Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. Also, he performed work on a non-resident basis in Indonesia, Dubai, and Alaska. His selected specific job assignments during this 23 year period included Manager of Nigeria Business Unit, VP of Business Development and Production for Conoco Canada Ltd., Division Engineering Manager for New Orleans offshore operating division, Project Manager positions on six oil and gas development projects (in Indonesia, Egypt, Dubai, and Alaska), and various early career process engineering and drilling engineering positions.
During the period of 2008 to 2011, Patrick was the Vice President of Western Operations of Harvest Natural Resources and was responsible for all US operations for Harvest Natural Resources, a NYSE traded independent oil and gas company. He managed very successful Antelope Exploration and Development project in NE Utah to its successful sale in 2011.
Presently, Patrick is the Chairman and CEO of Hawkwood Energy, LLC, a private equity funded unconventional oil and gas exploration company based in Denver, Colorado. He was co-founder of company in 2011, and has served in leadership role in establishing, funding, staffing, and conducting initial operations of the company. The company pursues significant projects in the Rocky Mountains, Mid-Continent, and Texas and is funded for total capital expenditure of $ 315 MM. Patrick is a Professional Engineer, licensed in Texas, and is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Patrick is married to Brenda Oenbring and been together for 39 years and have two children ages 37 and 34, four grandchildren ages 12, 10, 7 and 1.
Inducted 2015
David R. Zornes, ’76 (ConocoPhilips)
David R. Zornes has 35 years of technical and managerial experience with Phillips and ConocoPhillips in the areas of reservoir Engineering, EOR, completion and production related research and technical services. Currently, he is a consultant in reservoir technology to the University of Texas Advanced Energy Nano-Technology Consortium. Significant service to the KU CPE department comes from his service on the TORP Advisory Board. David has championed funding and advice on TORP’s nano-technology EOR project within ConocoPhillips.
David has been active in the Society of Petroleum Engineers for 40 years serving the Bartlesville section as President and Program Chair, and society-wide on program committees for important international meetings and on several standing committees. He served five times on the organizing committee for the bi-annual SPE/DOE/IOR Symposium and was a leader in the development of SPE’s R&D section and its 2009 Conference. In 2010 he was named an SPE IOR Pioneer and in 2009 he received the SPE Mid-Continent Service Award. David has also been active in API and AIChE. David received BS and MS degrees in Chemistry/Physics Education from Emporia Kansas State University and an MS degree in Chemical Engineering from KU in 1976. David is the holder of five patents, has numerous pending patents and has authored or co-authored more than 20 papers in the areas of enhanced oil recovery and CO2- hydrates research.
David has diligently served as a member of the Tertiary Oil Recovery Project Advisory Board for about 10 years. He was the principal contact on a joint COP-KU research project to develop and use nano-versions of EOR and oilfield chemicals to improve their efficiencies.
Lance L. Lobban, ’81 (University of Oklahoma)
Dr. Lance Lobban received his BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Kansas in 1981 and his PhD, also in Chemical Engineering, from the University of Houston in 1987. He joined the University of Oklahoma in 1987 after receiving his PhD. Dr. Lobban is the Francis W. Winn Chair in the School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He served as the director of CBME for 16 years, from 1998 to 2014, when he returned to full time teaching and research. His current research activities focus on catalytic conversion of biomass to liquid fuels and chemicals. He is the author or co-author of over 65 archival journal articles, three patents, and numerous technical presentations and seminars.
His research focuses on catalysis and reaction engineering. His group combines experimental measurement with theoretical analyses of reaction mechanisms in order to better understand and improve catalytic and non-catalytic chemical reaction processes. The operating conditions of the reacting systems studied include gas phase reactions at
temperatures up to 800°C, liquid phase reactions at room temperature and below, solid biomass reactions over a range of temperatures, photocatalytic reactions and reactions in cold plasmas. The experimental techniques have included steady and unsteady (transient) state kinetics measurements, adsorbed species identification using diffuse reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and measurement of isotopic species using mass spectrometry.
His current research involves thermochemical conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals. He is investigating both conversion of natural fats and oils to diesel fuel and petrochemicals, and conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals. Although the “refining” of biomass has analogies to refining of petroleum, biomass is highly oxygenated, and conversion to hydrocarbons requires new catalysts, reactors and reaction conditions that differ greatly from those used in petroleum refining. A huge challenge in development of these biomass conversion systems is the smaller scale at which they must operate due to the distributed nature of biomass resources.
Dr. Lobban has received multiple teaching and service awards at the University of Oklahoma at the department, college and university level, including the Mortar Board Top Ten Faculty Award, the University of Oklahoma Presidential Professorship, the Board of Regents Award for Superior Teaching, and the departmental outstanding instructor award more than ten times.
Lance has served as a member on the C&PE advisory board since 1996. Because of his distinguished career, service to the engineering profession, and dedicated support of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Dr. Lance L. Lobban is inducted in 2015 CPE Hall of Fame.
Inducted 2016
Carlos Rocha,’90 (Amgen)
Dr. Carlos Rocha has had a productive professional career as a chemical engineer working in the biotechnology plant design and construction area since completing his doctorate in 1990. Carlos received his BS from Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMP) in Argentina and his MS and PhD from University of Kansas. All of his degrees are in Chemical Engineering.
He served as Project Engineer and Project Manager on several large domestic and international client projects for Jacobs Engineering from 1990-2005. He joined Amgen in 2006 as Engineering Projects Director. At Amgen he established a project engineering group that covered all aspects of plant design, construction and start-up. He also directed all Amgen Colorado capital investments. Amgen’s 2011 and 2012 capital investments exceeded $100 M. In 2013 he moved to Baxter Inc. as Sr. Director of Engineering. Then in July, 2015 he became Head of Capital Programs for Baxalta, Inc. a spin-off company from Baxter. In this position he oversees a group that currently manages more than 30 capital projects having a value on the order of $1.5 billion and an annual cash flow of $600-$700 million.
Carlos has been an active member of the CPE External Advisory Board since 1993, often serving as a leader on projects that benefit students and the Department. He served one term as Board Chair and during that term worked with the CPE Chair, focusing on issues such as Unit Operations Laboratory safety. He was a leader in the organization and for several years led the operation of the annual senior exit interviews, the results of which have been used to improve the undergraduate program and strengthen our ABET accreditation metrics. Throughout his service on the Board he has consistently been a strong proponent of programs and activities that benefit undergraduate students.
His community services include coaching youth soccer teams and a soccer Special Olympics team in Lawrence, KS. Additionally, he has served as volunteer and as member of the Board of Directors of HOPE, an organization in Colorado which serves the homeless population.
Carlos has been married for 38 years to Marta Rocha. They have three children and four grandchildren, the oldest one planning to attend KU next semester.
Inducted 2017
Gary E. Gould (EQT Corp., Blackstone)
Mr. Gary Gould has excelled in three areas: as a reservoir and production engineer involved in directing oil and gas exploitation in very large fields in the United States, as an executive responsible for oversight of oil and gas production for large US energy companies, and as a CPE Advisory Board member for service to the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department at KU. Gary received his BS and MS degrees in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Kansas in 1987 and 1991.
Gary has an extremely wide range of experience as an engineer, working in several major oil and gas basins across the country, including the Anadarko Basin, Williston Basin, Permian Basin, and Appalachian Basin to name a few. He has worked in primary development, waterflooding, and EOR using CO2. He also has worked in major shale projects including the Barnett, Fayetteville, Woodford, Bakken, and Marcellus Shales, unconventional formations which contain enormous oil and gas reserves. He has been an engineer using new technologies in projects during a period of time in which advances in geologic, drilling, completions, and reservoir technology have been responsible for the United States making a major advance towards energy independence.
Gary’s contributions have been recognized by his employers with titles such as Manager, Director, Vice President, and currently Senior Vice President with responsibilities ranging from Operations to Production to Resource Development. Oil and gas properties with which he has had oversight have generated billions of dollars of value to shareholders. His accomplishments clearly show a record of leadership in development of our oil and gas resources in the United States.
Gary has been a dedicated supporter of the CPE Department, where he has served on the Advisory Board since 2009. He chaired the Senior Exit Interview Committee in 2011 and 2012, an activity that makes a significant contribution to maintaining ABET Accreditation, and he has continued as an interviewer during the past several years. In addition, he served as Chair of the Advisory Board in 2014. Gary met his wife Beth at KU. They have been married for over 25 years and are blessed with five children.
Guy Green (US Army Corps of Engineers)
Mr. Guy Green has over 25 years of experience in technical and managerial positions. Currently, he is the Chief of the Seattle District US Army Corps of Engineers Design Branch. This branch has the responsibility for the management and supervision of a multidisciplinary architectural and engineering team which includes the designs and specifications for a wide range of Civil Works, Military, and Hazardous, Toxic and Radiological Waste projects. Technical oversight through subordinate supervisors has included numerous types of large military industrial, housing, and troop operation facilities; ecosystem restoration designs; dam fish passage facilities; levee rehabilitation and restoration, and a variety of engineering rehabilitation designs for several dams throughout the Pacific Northwest. In this position, Guy has also served as the Supervisor responsible for performance evaluations, assignment and oversight for position rotations, training, coaching, and mentoring. Guy has earned many impressive awards in his career including the Department of the Army Achievement Medal for Civilian Service, and the District Engineer of the Year. Guy earned a Master of Environmental Engineering degree from KU in 1991, and a B.S. in Petroleum Engineering from KU in 1985.
Guy has diligently served as a member of the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Advisory Board since 2001. He was Vice Chair of the Board in 2007-2008 and Chair in 2008-2009. Of particular note is his leadership as an advocate for both of our engineering programs by being very involved with the senior exit interview process to improve our department as a whole. Guy became married to his lovely wife, Aina (pronounced “eye-na”) in 1990.
Inducted 2018
Richard Hoover ’71 (Dow Corning)
Richard earned a BS degree in Chemical Engineering at KU, graduating in 1971. His professional career was almost entirely with Dow Corning and involved a very diverse set of responsibilities in different management positions. His successes and personal recognition from the company, as demonstrated by his appointment to several positions of very significant responsibility, exemplify what can be accomplished in professional work by a chemical engineer. Notable positions which he held with Dow Corning are described in what follows.
Early in his career he served as President and CEO of Dow Corning, Mexico, an introduction to management of a chemical company in the international sphere. Then in 1992 he was named Executive Director for Health and Safety, a role in which he served for two years as the Dow Corning point person interacting with the FDA and EPA during company lawsuits involving silicone breast implants. In this position he was a key person in decisions involving billions of dollars. A following very notable appointment was as Corporate Vice President, and President and CEO of Dow Corning Asia, a position which he held for six years. This company was active in the People’s Republic of China and South Korea. The very large company, approximately 700 employees, had a revenue stream on the order of one billion dollars. During this period, he also served as Board Chairman of Hemlock Semiconductor, the world’s largest producer of polycrystal silicon for the chip industry (joint Dow Corning venture with 2/3 ownership). In a final phase of his work, he was a member of the Dow Corning Investment Committee which has fiduciary and investment responsibility for benefit and pension plans with a value on the order of two billion dollars.
Following retirement, since 2013 Rich has served on the Leelanau County, Michigan Conservancy Board, Executive and Finance Committees which advises on land purchases and development easements for watersheds, farmland and animal migration corridors. This is a notable public service activity. Rich hails from a large KU family starting with his grandfather in 1928. Rich’s dad was a KU Chemical Engineering (1945) as is one of his niece. His mother was also a KU graduate from College of Science and Liberal Arts (1945). His wife Beth, graduated from KU with a Chemistry BS degree (1971). Rich has two children, a son Richard graduated from KU Biology Department (1998), and a daughter Ginger who “escaped” to MSU. His sister Alicia, and his brother-in-law Roger Rieder (both are here) are also KU
graduates. In retirement, Rich and Beth reside on the Leelanau peninsula in Northwest Michigan.
Inducted 2019
Todd Slawson ’84 (Slawson Exploration Co.)
Mr. Robert Todd Slawson received his B.Sc. degree in Petroleum Engineering from our department in 1984. He became employed by Slawson Exploration Company in 1984 and worked one year in North Dakota before settling in in Denver, Colorado. He became Division Operations Manager in 1988 and now serves as President of Slawson Exploration. He is the youngest of the three sons of Donald C. Slawson who founded Slawson Exploration and many other companies. Todd has drilled over 800 operated wells (mostly horizontal) during his career in North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and California. Don Slawson drilled over 3,500 operated wells in his career – mostly vertical wells in Kansas, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle.
Todd and his team have been innovators his entire career. In his California exploration and drilling days, he quickly improved vertical drilling time from 30 days to 5 days and found enough bypassed gas, utilizing the newer 3D seismic technology, to become the number one gas producer in California. In 1989, his Williston Basin career led him to be one of the first to drill a horizontal Bakken Shale well. That well, called the Sidewinder #1-7H, with a 1000’ lateral, made national news, as it was the horizontal well that finally “cracked the code” in the Bakken with an IP of over 1,300 BOPD. The syndicated news story headline was “Dakota Find May Be Significant,” but no one knew how significant the Sidewinder well would become. The Bakken is now estimated to produce over 30 billion barrels of oil over its lifetime.
Todd has continued innovating in the Bakken play throughout its development. He started with unfrac’d laterals, progressed to open hole fracs and improved to stage fracs—setting a world record in 2012 with 47 frac stages per lateral, while most companies had less than 10 stages. He has also experimented with other completion techniques such as cemented liners, pounds of sand per foot, sliding sleeves, slick water, perf clusters, and diverters. These completion changes have almost doubled the ultimate recoveries per well since the beginning of the play and have made uneconomic fringes of the Bakken region now profitable.
In terms of service to KU, Todd was instrumental in founding the Earth, Energy, and Environmental Center (EEEC) at the University of Kansas. Completed in January 2018, the EEEC is anchored by Slawson Hall, which is a tribute to Todd’s father. The EEEC is highly relevant to the integration of petroleum engineering and geology, the two disciplines most significant to the successful discovery and exploitation of oil and gas reserves. The Center transforms the approach to interdisciplinary study at KU. With Todd now based in Denver and Slawson Exploration now focusing on the Bakken in North Dakota and Montana, it would have been easy for him to migrate away from the Kansas legacy established by three previous generations. To the contrary, he doubled down on the Kansas, KU, and higher education legacies by making Slawson Hall and the EEEC a reality for future Jayhawks. Todd also serves on the KU Endowment Association (KUEA) Board of Trustees. Todd Slawson has made stellar contributions to the oil and gas industry, was and is an engineering innovator, has been a fervent supporter of KU and the C&PE Department, and represents a legacy we would like to encourage our alumni to continue.
Inducted 2020
Marylee Southard, (University of Kansas)
Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook (9th Ed.) Associate Editor. HOPE Award for Outstanding Teaching; NIH-NIGMS FIRST Research Award.
Inducted 2021
Kent Pennybaker ’83 (River City Engineering, Inc.)
Kent Pennybaker received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from KU in 1983. He worked as a Borehole Gravity Engineer doing specialized wireline logging worldwide for 3 years before returning to KU to pursue his masters. He received his M.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from KU in 1987. While at KU he was a Teaching Assistant for "An Introduction to Computers in Engineering” and was named "Outstanding Graduate Student" in 1987. He then went to work for Conoco based in Ponca City, Oklahoma for 7 years. He supported the upstream and midstream operations providing process engineering support. This included gas plants and offshore facilities worldwide. In 1994, he left Conoco and founded River City Engineering, Inc. (RCE) in Lawrence, Kansas. RCE focuses on process engineering services for the upstream and midstream industry. He has worked on many new plant designs and troubleshooting of existing facilities worldwide. One of the highlights was his involvement in designing and start-up of the first floating gas processing and fractionation facility in the world. Currently he is involved in another first of its kind project; a Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) facility. Kent is married to Janet Knollenberg, who was a KU Chemical Engineering student, and they have two children; Attie and Austin.
Nnaemeka Ezekwe (TIGA Petroleum, Inc.)
Dr. Nnaemeka Ezekwe holds B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in chemical and petroleum engineering, and an MBA, all from the University of Kansas. Currently, he is the Principal Consultant at TIGA Petroleum Inc. based in Houston Texas. In a span of more than 35-years career in the petroleum industry, he worked at Petrobras Oil & Gas B.V. as a Reservoir Engineer Expert, at BP as an EOR Deployment Manager, at Devon Energy and Pennzoil Oil Co. as a senior petroleum engineer advisor, and in several managerial roles at Bechtel Petroleum Operations, California. He lectured two times as an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2004-2005 and 2012-2013, speaking on reservoir management strategies and smart well technologies to world-wide audiences in over seventy countries. Dr. Ezekwe has published numerous technical papers on chemical and petroleum engineering topics. He is the author of two best-selling textbooks on reservoir engineering titled: Petroleum Reservoir Engineering Practice, 2011 & Reservoir Engineering of Conventional and Unconventional Petroleum Resources, 2020. He is a registered professional engineer in California and Texas. Dr. Ezekwe was elected a Distinguished Member of Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) in 2013.
Inducted 2021
Frank D. Tsuru '83 (Momentum Midstream)
Frank Tsuru co-founded Momentum Midstream in 2004 and currently serves as its CEO. In addition to his executive role at Momentum, he was the President and CEO of Indigo Natural Resources, an E&P company operating primarily in North Louisiana prior to its sale in 2021. Upon graduating from the University of Kansas, Tsuru joined TXO Production Corp as a drilling and production engineer. In 1991, he co-founded Southwestern Production Corp. producing coal bed methane in SW Colorado. In 1995, he was asked to be President and COO of Red Cedar Gathering Co., In 2004, Frank Tsuru founded Momentum and then was asked to serve as the President of Indigo Natural Resources in 2016. Tsuru is very involved with community, national and international philanthropic organizations. He currently serves on the boards of several non-profit and for-profit boards. He continues to be very active in the Boy Scouts of America serving as the President of the National Eagle Scout Association. Frank is married to Stephanie Tsuru, and they have three children and three grandchildren all living in Houston with their families.
James H. Edgar '81 (Distinguished Professor, K-State)
Dr. James H. Edgar earned his BS in chemical engineering from KU in 1981. His favorite courses were Physics III (quantum physics), Physical Chemistry (he received the 1980 Outstanding Student in Physical Chemistry Award) and Electronic Devices and Properties of Materials. He next earned his PhD at the University of Florida, studying the application of chemical engineering principles to the processing of electronic, optoelectronic, and photonic devices - the subsequent focus of his research. In 1988, he joined the Tim Taylor Department of Chemical Engineering at Kansas State University. Dr. Edgar rose through the ranks ultimately becoming a University Distinguished Professor (2013) and serving as the head of the department from 2009 to 2019. He most frequently taught Thermodynamics and Materials Science and Engineering. He spent sabbaticals at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, and Radboud University, the Netherlands, and was a director in the Electronic and Photonic Materials program at National Science Foundation (NSF) from 2019-2022. His research was supported by the NSF, Office of Naval Research, and the Department of Energy, among others. As of 2022, he had co-authored more than 230 papers and advised 17 MS and 22 PhD students.