Laurence Weatherley, Chairman CPE Department
It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the Petroleum Engineering Program of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Kansas. I hope that you find the information you require and gain a good impression of our activities in Petroleum Engineering.
Energy is currently headline news in the USA and although there is great interest in the development of alternative fuels, there is no doubt that oil and gas will continue to dominate the supply of transportation fuels and of feedstocks for chemical products for many years to come. As oil prices remain high the oil industry continues to invest heavily in exploration and production, and the demand for high quality graduates and PhDs in petroleum engineering is very strong. Our graduates from our Petroleum Engineering programs (BS, MS, and PhD) continue to attract among some of the highest starting salaries of all new graduates in the US and overseas.
We are very proud of our track record of excellence in both teaching and research in Petroleum Engineering. In particular we maintain a program which is relevant to the needs of the petroleum industry both in-state and nationally. Our activities are underpinned by the department.s outstanding teaching and research facilities. These have recently been updated and expanded. In 2006 we opened a newly refurbished Petroleum Engineering teaching laboratory for our undergraduate program. This was made possible by generous donations from our alumni. We also have opened new research laboratories for an expanded research program in Petroleum Engineering. These are currently occupied by some of our graduate students and post-doctoral research fellows.
Our website highlights some of the most recent developments in our leading edge research in petroleum engineering. The department also hosts a major state funded petroleum engineering research center - the Tertiary Oil Recovery Project (TORP). The focus of TORP is development of new enhanced oil recovery techniques for the benefit of the oil producers of Kansas. Areas of interest include nano technologies for oil and gas field applications, gel polymer enhanced oil recovery, carbon dioxide and water flood techniques, wax deposition studies, and the use of biological techniques in the development and management of oil wells.
We are also proud that our Petroleum Engineering BS degree is fully ABET accredited and as such, a BS degree from KU will be recognized internationally. This will greatly facilitate your formal recognition as a fully fledged professional engineer after training and experience in the field. We are the only department in Kansas which offers a fully accredited BS program in Petroleum Engineering.
This year, through the generous donations by our alumni, we have been able to take our Petroleum Engineering undergraduate freshmen on a number of field trips. One of the highlights was the day spent in the Houston Energy Museum last September. This was followed by a couple of days spent by the students at the Society of Petroleum Engineers conference and trade exhibition in San Antonio. Here they were able to see at first hand the scope, scale and excitement of the petroleum industry.
The last year has been an excellent one with significant achievements by many colleagues, but notably by two who are most closely connected to our petroleum engineering program. We were delighted to learn that our colleague Dr Paul Willhite was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. This is a major distinction for Paul. In May 2007, Paul also won the School of Engineering award for student advising. In April 2006, Dr Don Green received the Society of Petroleum Engineers Pioneer Award for his major contribution to Petroleum Engineering.
It continues to be a great pleasure to welcome to the Department a significant number of new graduate students. In Fall 2006 we welcomed ten new MS and PhD students. We welcome especially, in addition to our US students, a significant group of international post-graduates from Germany, Korea, Kuwait, India, Iran, Mexico, and P.R.China. The Department is privileged to host such a friendly and established community of international students.
If you are interested in seeing the Department or require further information about petroleum engineering here at KU I would be delighted to hear from you, by phone, fax or by e-mail.
Yours sincerely,
