Russell Taylor Johns

Russell T. Johns is a professor emeritus in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State. He was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer for 2019–2020 and served as editor-in-chief of all SPE technical journals from 2018 to 2020.

He also directed the Enhanced Oil Recovery Consortium at Penn State's EMS Energy Institute until 2020 and co-directed the Subsurface Energy Recovery and Storage Joint Industry Project (JIP) until 2025. He served as chair of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering Program from 2015 to 2018 and as interim head of the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering from 2023 to 2024.

Prior to joining Penn State, Johns was a faculty member in petroleum engineering at the University of Texas at Austin from 1995 to 2010. He also has nine years of industry experience, having worked as a petrophysical engineer with Shell Oil and as a hydrogeologist with Colenco Power Consulting in Baden, Switzerland. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Petroleum Engineering from Stanford University.

Johns has authored or co-authored more than 250 publications spanning enhanced oil recovery, thermodynamics and phase behavior, unconventional gas engineering, multiphase flow in porous media, and well testing. His numerous honors include the SPE Cedric K. Ferguson Medal (1993), SPE Distinguished Member Award (2009), SPE Faculty Pipeline Award (2013), SPE International Award for Reservoir Description and Dynamics (2016), Wilson Award for Excellence in Research from Penn State's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (2018), SPE IOR Pioneer Award (2022), and the Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal (2023), SPE's highest technical honor.

Johns is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.