Penn State Sweeps Top Honors at the 2010 Eastern Regional SPE Student Paper/Presentation Contest
March 23, 2010
Penn State placed first in all three divisions of the 2010 Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Rocky Mountain/Mid-Continent/Eastern Region Student Paper/Presentation competition on Saturday, March 20 at University Park, PA.
Roy Borkhoche, B.S. student in petroleum and natural gas engineering, was awarded first place in the undergraduate division for his presentation entitled, "Reactivation Project." Competing in the master's division, Chris Landry, M.S. student in energy and mineral engineering, landed first place for his presentation entitled, "Pore-Scale Experimental Analysis of Interfacial Areas in Oil-Wet and Water-Wet Media." Prob Thararoop, Ph.D. candidate in petroleum and natural gas engineering, completed the sweep by scoring first place in the doctorate division for his presentation entitled, "Numerical Studies on the Effects of Water Presence in the Coal Matrix and Coal Shrinkage and Swelling on CO2-Enhanced Coalbed Methane Recovery Process."
Roy, Chris, and Prob now will advance to compete against the first place winners from other regional contests at the SPE International Student Paper/Presentation contest to be held at the annual SPE Technical Conference and Exhibition in Florence, Italy in September 2010.
Other Penn State students to receive a placement were Yogesh Bansal, M.S. student in petroleum and mineral engineering, who was awarded third place in the master's division for his presentation entitled, "Conducting In-Situ Combustion Tube Experiments Using Artificial Expert System", and Chung-Hao Lee, Ph.D. candidate in petroleum and mineral engineering, who won second place in the doctorate division for his presentation entitled, "Experimental Investigation of Spontaneous Imbibition in Naturally Fractured Reserves."
The purpose of the SPE student paper contests is to give students at the undergraduate, master's, and doctorate level the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and research in the field of petroleum engineering. Students compete with their peers from other universities within the same region in one of the nine SPE regional contests held each year. The winners from each division in each region then are invited to participate in the International Student Paper/Presentation competition.
Along with Penn State, the Eastern Regional competition included students from the University of Oklahoma, University of Tulsa, and University of Wyoming.
The complete final results of the competition are as follows:
Undergraduate Division
First Place: Roy Borkhoche, Penn State University
Second Place: John Wampler, University of Oklahoma
Third Place: Kyle Bonney, University of Tulsa
Master's Division
First Place: Chris Landry, Penn State University
Second Place: Duc Nguyen, University of Tulsa
Third Place: Yogesh Bansal, Penn State University
Doctorate Division
First Place: Prob Thararoop, Penn State University
Second Place: Chung-Hao Lee, Penn State University
Third Place: Saeed Ovaysi, University of Wyoming
