Gomaa Wins International SPE Fellowship
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December 08, 2023
Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering (UT PGE) graduate student Ibrahim Gomaa (PhD PE 2024) has won the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) 2023 Henry DeWitt Smith Fellowship. The fellowship is awarded annually to a student pursuing a graduate degree in petroleum engineering or a related field.
As part of the Multi-Scale Rock Physics Research Program led by Associate Professor Zoya Heidari, Gomaa's research is focused on the evaluation of unconventional oil and gas reservoirs for the purpose of carbon dioxide and hydrogen storage, which are considered by experts to be critical components of the energy sector’s transition to a sustainable energy future. Gomaa is also the main author of multiple publications ranging from book chapters and scientific patents to journal articles and conference proceedings. His diverse work encompasses areas such as CO2 sequestration, reservoir stimulation, machine learning and oilfield chemicals.
Gomaa was also part of the UT PGE team of students who won the 2023 Chevron National Engineering Week Competition in February. The team presented multiscale energy solutions that could contribute to the mitigation of global warming and provide energy sustainability solutions. In addition, Gomaa was named Outstanding Student Poster Winner for the 2023 SPE Workshop: Oil and Gas Technology for a Net-Zero World – Defining Our Grand Challenges for the Next Decade. He is a recipient of the Cockrell School of Engineering’s S.P. Yates Memorial Endowment for Graduate Fellowships and the John and Kelli Weinzierl Endowed Presidential Fellowship in Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, and is vice president of the UT Austin Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts (SPWLA) student chapter.
The DeWitt Smith fellowship is set up by SPE’s parent organization, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME), and honors subsurface pioneer Henry DeWitt Smith’s “inspired leadership, professional success, personal integrity, and boundless dedication to the mining industry.” After graduated from Yale's Sheffield Scientific School in 1910, he served as foreman, mine superintendent and general superintendent at mines across the U.S. and Mexico, eventually serving as Executive Vice President of Metals Reserve Company.
