Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

College of Engineering and Physical Sciences

Dr. Harris holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Harris has varied work experience in academia, business and government. He has been associated with a number of start-up and entrepreneurial firms in high-tech applications for improved energy recovery and other technologies. He began his professional career as a Research Chemical Engineer, Texaco, Inc., Texaco Research Center, Beacon, NY. Following the completion of his PhD, he served as Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, and was active in consulting in the Gulf Coast region. This included a retained consultancy with E.I. duPont de Nemours & Co., Pontchartrain Works, LaPlace LA, and a long-term consultancy with Walk, Haydel and Associates, Inc., New Orleans, LA, subsequently acquired by Dames and Moore (a global geotechnical, environmental and engineering firm). He served as Executive Vice President and Chairman of the Board, Toth Aluminum Company, New Orleans, LA.

Because of an increasing interest in energy and natural resources, he accepted the position of Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY. He became an expert in coalbed methane, oil shale and other alternative fuels, and served as a consultant to the Laramie Energy Technology Center, Department of Energy, Laramie, WY, and as a retained consultant to Resources Refining, Inc., Laramie, a minerals processing firm. He resigned from the University of Wyoming after founding Harris and Associates, Inc., an engineering consulting firm; he subsequently sold this firm to The Keplinger Companies (a worldwide oil and gas consulting and reserves appraisal firm). He served as Manager, Alternate Energy and Minerals and Vice President of Keplinger Technology Consultants, Inc., Denver, CO. He also served as Executive Vice-President, American Matrix Reserves, Denver, CO, a small, independent gas production company. Dr. Harris returned to the University of Wyoming as Professor and Department Head of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, and Director of the University of Wyoming Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute. He is currently Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering.

Dr. Harris has had substantial international experience, including planning and implementation of projects between the University of Wyoming and the Moscow State Academy of Oil and Gas; UW and Saratov State University in Russia; UW and the China National Petroleum Corporation and its seven universities and institutes of petroleum. He has been involved in planning, development and management roles in state-to-state exchange programs between the State of Wyoming and Saratov Oblast', Russia, and Heilongjiang Province, Peoples Republic of China. Dr. Harris has specific chemical process and petroleum engineering experience in commercial projects in the US, Australia, China, and Russia. He has taught a number of short courses in chemical and petroleum engineering to industrial clients in Canada, Kazakhstan, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States.

Dr. Harris is an expert in several fields, including: (1) oil and gas reservoir engineering, particularly coalbed methane production and thermal enhanced oil recovery, (2) oil shale processing, and (3) process modeling and design. He has authored over 200 publications, papers, patents, engineering studies and proprietary reports in oil and gas exploitation, petroleum refining, petrochemical production and various areas of process design. Dr. Harris has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in all aspects of chemical engineering and reservoir petroleum engineering, and is familiar with various computer aided process design and reservoir simulation packages. He has won a number of teaching awards, including the 1998-99 Tau Beta Pi College of Engineering Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award, and the outstanding teaching award in Chemical Engineering for 2011.