Irene Arango is a senior geochemist with Chevron’s Energy Technology Company, where she has worked for the past 12 years as an internal geochemical consultant on exploration and development projects worldwide. She has served as principal investigator in research projects on topics including pre-drill risk assessment of non-hydrocarbon gases in reservoirs (e.g., CO₂, H₂S) and geochemistry of unconventional plays.

Arango has worked on identification of geochemical indicators of core areas and sweet spots in tight reservoirs, on the evaluation of processes controlling unconventional reservoir properties such as organic porosity and retention capacity, and on the assessment of oil fingerprints for improved unconventional field development. She has presented her work at AAPG, URTeC and IMOG conferences and recently co-authored a review paper in Organic Geochemistry on organic porosity from a geochemical perspective. She is a recipient of the AAPG 2014 Gabriel Dengo Memorial Award in recognition of the best AAPG paper presented during the 2013 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition

Arango is the coordinator of Chevron’s Hydrocarbon Charge Training Program and has presented classes for AAPG and at universities. Prior to her work at Chevron, she worked for Ecopetrol as a development geologist in the Llanos Basin (Colombia). She received her doctorate in geology with emphasis in geochemistry from Indiana University (2006), a master’s degree in geology, with minor in biology, from Indiana State University (2002), and an undergraduate degree in geology from the National University of Colombia (1998).

Arango is an active member of AAPG, serving as session chair, and posters and oral papers judge at various AAPG conferences, acting as co-chair of the Geochemistry, Basin Modeling and Petroleum Systems theme of the AAPG 2017 Annual Convention and Exhibition, and being co-convener for the AAPG-sponsored 2019 Hedberg Conference on the evolution of petroleum systems analysis. Arango is technical reviewer for peer-review journals and serves as head of the Houston Organic Geochemistry Society, a group of petroleum system specialists that meets in Houston for technical talks and discussion. She enjoys spending time with her family and loves to travel.