Society of Petroleum Engineers Honors UWs Dejam

An assistant professor in the University of Wyoming’s Department of Petroleum Engineering has been recognized at the regional level by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).

Morteza Dejam is the recipient of the 2019 SPE Regional Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award and the 2019 SPE Regional Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty. As the recipient of the two SPE awards, his name will be listed on www.spe.org. The awards will be presented to him April 17 during the 2019 Denver Advanced Practices in Unconventional Basins meeting.

The SPE Regional Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award acknowledges exceptional contributions to SPE at the section or regional level, and recognizes singular devotion of time and effort to the reservoir engineering program and development of technical expertise in this discipline.

The SPE Regional Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty recognizes superiority in classroom teaching; excellence in research; significant contributions to the petroleum engineering profession; and/or special effectiveness in advising and guiding students at the section or regional level.

“These are prestigious SPE awards that show Dr. Dejam’s outstanding contribution to the field of reservoir description and dynamics, as well as overall scholarship in petroleum engineering,” says his colleague, Professor Hertanto Adidharma, of the UW College of Engineering and Applied Science’s Department of Petroleum Engineering. “As recipient of the regional awards, he automatically will be a candidate for the international equivalent award beginning next year.”

Before coming to UW in May 2017, Dejam worked as a postdoctoral scholar and a sessional instructor in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Calgary. He has one year of industrial work experience with the National Iranian South Oil Company as a reservoir studies engineer. In addition, he taught petroleum engineering courses at the Azad University of Omidieh for five semesters.

His area of research is theoretical and experimental studies of transport phenomena in porous media, with focuses on shear dispersion in double-porosity systems; block-to-block interaction processes in fractured porous media; geological storage of carbon dioxide; fluid flow and transport in shale and tight rocks; phase equilibria of confined fluids in nanopores; and enhanced oil recovery in sandstone and carbonate formations. He has studied these subjects using cutting-edge experimental and analytical/numerical modeling techniques, which resulted in several journal articles and conference papers.

He obtained his Ph.D., master’s and bachelor’s degrees in petroleum engineering from the University of Calgary, Sharif University of Technology and Petroleum University of Technology in 2016, 2009 and 2007, respectively.

Dejam was the recipient of several awards and scholarships at the University of Calgary, including the most prestigious Schulich School of Engineering Teaching Achievement Award; GSA Excellence in Teaching Award (Senior Instructor); J.B. Hyne Research Innovation Award; Len Bolger Memorial Scholarship for Energy Research Excellence; Alberta Innovates Technology Futures Ingenuity Doctoral Scholarship; and Schulich School of Engineering Teaching Assistant Excellence Award. He is a professional member of SPE.