John Thurmond, Principal Advisor - Geoscience (Emerging Technology), Hess

John Thurmond is the Principal Advisor for Emerging Technology in Geoscience for Hess. John has more than twenty years of industry experience spanning from unconventional exploration to offshore production, but has always focused on meshing the latest technologies into real business needs. John holds a Ph.D. in Geoscience from the University of Texas at Dallas, and was a pioneer in digital outcrop mapping, winning the Ziad Beydoun Memorial Award from AAPG in 2003 for this work. Since then, he has advanced industry understanding of diverse areas such as Source To Sink methodologies, artificial intelligence interpretation of seismic data, and the overlap between space and subsurface exploration. He is passionate about how we learn from failure, and would love to hear your stories about that.

Taha Hussain, Venture Partner, Delek US

Taha serves as Venture Partner of DK Innovation, Delek US’ corporate venture capital fund and holds a Board position at Utility Global. Previously Venture Executive at Chevron, Taha has 25+ years of experience in the oil and gas industry with Board positions at Strohm (Airborne) and Clarke Valves. Taha received his M.S. in business focused on technology management from Columbia University in New York. He also has B.S. in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M and B.Sc. in analytical chemistry from University of Karachi. No-profit board positions include Aspiring Futures USA, NACE Foundation and Columbia Alumni Association Board for Texas chapter

Stuart Coleman, Venture Principal, Chevron Technology Ventures

Stuart has been part of Chevron Technology Ventures for over four years, currently holding the position of Venture Principal on the Core Venture Capital Team. Prior to joining the Venture Capital Team, Stuart was a Special Core Analysis Advisor on the Core Analysis Consulting Team, within Chevron’s Energy Technology Company. Stuart earned a M.S. in Petroleum Engineering and a M.A. in Energy & Earth Resources, both from The University of Texas at Austin. Before UT, he earned a B.S. in Geological Engineering with honors from the University of Mississippi.

Sudhir Pai, Director, Technology Collaboration Center

Sudhir Pai is Chairman, Board of Directors, Technology Collaboration Center, based in Houston, Texas. In April 2021, he accepted a position as Head - Robotics, Automation and Sustainability at Axiom Space. Axiom will lead the design, development, launch, activation, and operation of the world’s first commercial space station. He recently completed an exciting career at Schlumberger, world’s largest energy and oilfield services company, as Managing Director, Autonomous Robotics Services Business., He has strong interests in commercial aerospace, energy transition, health care, robotics, drones, Formula 1 and everything digital.

He has held a variety of management, technology and business leadership positions within Schlumberger, including VP & GM of Completions business, GM of Schlumberger operations Mumbai India and more recently MD at Liquid Robotics Oil and Gas (LROG), a Schlumberger start-up JV. He has more than 30 years of worldwide experience including assignments in operations, corporate planning, supply chain, human resources, service quality, and health, safety & environment. He has worked in 9 countries including Middle East, India, UK and USA with focus on client relations, business & technology, service quality and personnel development.

He holds a degree in electrical engineering from University of Bombay and an alumnus of International Space University, France. He is an active member of AIAA, National Diversity Council, Marine Technology Society (MTS) and Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). He serves on the executive advisory boards of SpaceCom, Subsea Systems Institute (UH, RICE, NASA consortium) and the Energy Drone & Robotics Summit.

At SpaceCom 2020 he moderated a session on Space Tourism. In Jan 2021 he was nominated to the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) as a Patron. In April 2016, he was recognized by the United States National Diversity Council with the 2016 Texas Multicultural Leadership Award. In Mar 2015 he was a Agora Energy Innovation Pioneer at IHS CERAWeek. In 2014 under his leadership Schlumberger-LROG won the World Oil New Horizons Idea Award. He is attributed to several patents. He is deeply committed to World Alliance Solar Impulse Foundation and on the advancement committee at his daughter’s school, The Kinkaid.

Jeremy Pearce, General Manager of Unconventionals, Shell

Jeremy Pearce started his career with Shell at the Bellaire Technology Center as a Research Petrophysicist developing novel well logging and fiber-optic surveillance technologies. He joined the Unconventionals organization in 2012 and has held a variety of technical and business roles including as a Petrophysicist in the Permian, Business Advisor, and Contracts Advisor, and Business Planning Manager for Appalachia. He is currently the Shales Technology Manager maturing technologies to deliver the Unconventionals business of the future. Jeremy holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Texas A&M University and M.S., Ph.D., and M.B.A. degrees from Rice University.

Susan Nash, Moderator, AAPG