Dr. Robello Samuel is a Director and a Halliburton Fellow for Drilling Engineering in the Drilling Evaluation division of Halliburton and working in Halliburton since 1998. He has over twenty-five years of experience in domestic and international oil/gas drilling and completion operations, management, consulting, research, and teaching. He has been an educator in the United States, Venezuela, Mexico, China, and India. Concurrently, he has been an adjunct professor for the past twelve years at the University of Houston where he teaches advanced drilling engineering, downhole tools and technologies, and complex well architecture courses.Among his recent honor, he has been named SPE Distinguished Lecturer .Dr. Samuel holds B.S. and M.S. (Mechanical Engineering) degrees from the University of Madurai (Madurai) , the College of Engineering, Guindy (Chennai). He received his M.S. and Ph.D. (Petroleum Engineering) degrees from Tulsa University.

Dr. Dmitry F. Baldenko, doctor of technical sciences, is an active member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. He graduated from Moscow Oil Institute named after Gubkin with specialty in “Machinery and Equipment of Oil and Gas Fields.” Since 1969, D. Baldenko has been working for the Russian Scientific Research Institute of Drilling Techniques (VNIIBT). As a chief designer of screw-type hydraulic machinery, he was directly involved in design, testing, and implementation of multi-stage positive displacement motors (PDMs).He was the first to propose and demonstrate the advantages of multi-lobe progressive cavity pumps, as well as a scheme of submersible hydraulic drive screw pumping unit for oil production.Dr. Dmitry Baldenko authored 200 scientific publications, including 12 books and reviews in the area of drilling and oilfield technology and is the owner of more than 250 Russian and foreign patents for invention.

Dr. Fedor D. Baldenko, in 1980, graduated from the Moscow Institute of Petrochemical and Gas Industry named after Gubkin with specialty “Machinery and Equipment of Oil and Gas Fields” and is constantly working in this institution (now Russian State University of Oil and Gas).As an associate professor of the oil and gas industry machinery and equipment department, F. Baldenko gives courses on “Machinery and equipment for drilling oil and gas wells”, “Installation and operation of drilling and oilfield equipment” and “Hydraulic machines and compressors.” He conducts research in the field of operation of single-screw hydraulic machines, theory cycloidal gearing, geometry optimization of screw working bodies, modeling of dynamic systems of drilling, and oilfield machinery. F. Baldenko has authored 120 scientific publications, including 8 monographs and reviews in the area of drilling and oilfield equipment. He is also the author of more than 50 patents for invention.

Dr. Deli Gao received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from China University of Petroleum, both in petroleum engineering, and received his Master of Science in mechanical engineering at the Southwestern-China Petroleum Institute. He completed his postdoctoral research work in engineering mechanics at the Beijing Tsinghua University. Since 1993, he has been working as a professor for China University of Petroleum -— Beijing as a professor. He was director of Department of Petroleum Engineering in the University from Aug. 1993 to Feb. 1995. Dr. Deli Gao is a Cheung-Kong Scholars-endowed professor and director of key laboratory of petroleum engineering, both issued by the Ministry of Education, China. He is chairman of the academic committee of China University of Petroleum -— Beijing, a standing director of the Chinese Petroleum Society and a member of the National Energy Expert Consulting Committee, China.

Dr. J.J. Azar is a McMan Chair professor of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Tulsa. He Joined the University in 1965 as an assistant professor in Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering and was promoted to associate professor in 1969. In 1974, he joined the Petroleum Engineering Department as full professor and Director of the University of Tulsa Drilling Research Projects. Dr. Azar has built one of the strongest academic and research program in drilling engineering at the University. In 1996 he resigned from the TUDRP directorship to devote more of his time to teaching. Dr. Azar has received the 1997 SPE Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty and the 1998 SPE Drilling Engineering Award. Dr. Azar was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2004.

Prosper Aideyan, P.E. holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University and M.Eng. in Petroleum Engineering from University of Houston. He has over 10 years of multi-disciplinary experience in well planning and design, well operations and process safety with major oil and gas companies. He is very passionate about continuous improvement and optimization including but not limited to equipment design and re-design, process and procedural improvement, process parameters optimization. His book on Drilling Operations- Cost and Risk Management is based on his experience on various successful drilling engineering and operations improvement projects he has worked on during the course of his career. Prosper Aideyan is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas, USA.

Dr. Xiushan Liu is a professor and deputy director of the petroleum drilling research institute at Sinopec Corporation’s Exploration & Production Research Institute, a visiting professor at CNPC’s Key Laboratory of Drilling Engineering, and a part-time professor at Daqing Petroleum Institute in China. He has a B.S. and an M.S. from Daqing Petroleum Institute and a Ph.D. from Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration & Development of CNPC, all in petroleum engineering. Liu is a member of SPE, a member and secretary at Basic Theory Group of Chinese Petroleum Society and an editorial board member for several of the world’s highly respected journals, including SPE Drilling & Completion and Journal of Hydrodynamics. Dr.Liu’s primary research interests are related to key fundamental issues that arise in oil and gas drilling especially in directional drilling.