Dear PNGE alumni,
I am pleased to relay our continued improvements to undergraduate education in PNGE. 2023 has been an excellent year for the program, with our students and faculty receiving several international and regional awards, including the Presidential Award for Outstanding Student Chapter for our Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) student chapter, SPE Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal for Russell Johns, SPE Regional Service Award for Luis Ayala, SPE Regional Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty for Hamid Emami-Meybodi, and SPE Regional Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award for Zuleima Karpyn.
We are pleased to welcome Yashar Mehmani and Anne Menefee, who joined the program as tenure-track assistant professors. We are also hiring an assistant teaching professor who will teach some of our courses and labs, including the rock and fluid properties lab, drilling lab, and production engineering lab.
Enrollment in the PNGE program currently stands at 170. At the graduate level, we have fifty students, roughly 20 percent M.S. and 80 percent Ph.D. degree candidates. During the 2023 calendar year, we have granted seventy-four B.S. degrees in PNGE, making Penn State ranked #1 in awarded PNGE B.S. degrees among U.S. universities, with 100 percent job placement in 2023 and median starting salaries of over $100K. At the same time, three M.S. students and six Ph.D. students completed their graduate work and received their degrees. We hope that through the recently established Subsurface Energy Recovery and Storage (SERS) JIP, we receive more industry support to recruit graduate students and conduct cutting-edge, high-risk research.
With generous gifts from Chevron Corp., we have purchased and built several experimental setups for the teaching and research labs focusing on carbon dioxide sequestration and seasonal hydrogen storage. This is a fine example of how external support can be critical in providing the best education for our talented students and advancing academic programs.
Our Industrial and Professional Advisory Committee has been very valuable in evaluating our program and providing crucial input for modifying our curriculum to meet the demands of the petroleum industry. We appreciate and welcome PNGE alumni to participate in our activities and volunteer.
So, here comes the new year, full of promises for all of us. I hope we will meet again at the end of 2024 with our aspirations realized, and new promises to pursue.
All the best,
Hamid Emami-Meybodi
Associate Professor and Program Chair, Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering