SPE Board of Directors

2026 Board of Directors

The Board of Directors is the policy-making and governing body of SPE. Its board committees oversee many of SPE's administrative and operating responsibilities. The board retains final authority on all SPE matters, including any actions the board committees may take.

2026 SPE President

Jennifer Miskimins
Colorado School of Mines
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Jennifer L. Miskimins is a professor and the department head of the petroleum engineering department at the Colorado School of Mines (Mines), where she holds the F.H. Mick Merelli/Coterra Energy Distinguished Department Head Chair.

She has over 30 years of experience in the petroleum industry, starting with Marathon Oil Company as a production engineer. Miskimins began teaching at Mines in 2002 and has held various appointments since then. From 2013–2015, she held a part-time appointment at Mines while working at Barree & Associates. In 2016, she returned full-time to the university.

Miskimins served as the first Completions Technical Director on the SPE International Board of Directors. She was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2010–2011 and 2013–2014. She was awarded the 2014 SPE Completions Optimization and Technology Award, and in 2022, she received the SPE Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty.

Miskimins has served on a variety of conference organizing committees, including chairing the 2023 and 2024 SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Conference and Exhibition, and as a technical editor for SPE journals, including serving as the executive editor of Production & Operations for 3 years. She was the editor in chief for the 2019 SPE Monograph update “Hydraulic Fracturing: Fundamentals and Advancements.” Miskimins has served on the AIME Board of Trustees since 2018 as an SPE trustee and was the 2022 AIME president.

Miskimins holds a BS from the Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology and MS and PhD degrees from the Colorado School of Mines, all in petroleum engineering.

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2025 SPE President

Olivier Houzé
KAPPA Engineering
Presidential Scheduling Request
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Olivier Houzé is the co-founder and managing director of KAPPA. After four years as a well test field engineer with Flopetrol (SLB), he co-founded KAPPA in 1987. He was the original author of Saphir, now the industry standard software in pressure transient analysis, and has served as KAPPA managing director since 1991.

Houzé has been involved in many SPE summits, forums, and workshops. He coauthored one SPE and one SPEE monographs. He was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2013 and served on the SPE Board as the Technical Director for Reservoir from 2012 to 2015. He was the recipient of the 2019 SPE Lester C. Uren Award and a 2022 SPE Honorary Award.

He holds an engineering degree from Ecole Polytechnique (1982) and an MSc in petroleum engineering from Stanford University (1983).

2027 SPE President

Susan Howes
Subsurface Consultants & Associates LLC
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C. Susan Howes, PE, PHR, 2027 SPE President, is president at Subsurface Consultants & Associates LLC (SCA) leading the firm’s consulting, recruitment, and training services with a commitment to technical excellence. Howes’ prior experience includes roles of increasing responsibility at Anadarko and Chevron in reservoir engineering, business development, corporate engineering, HR, organizational capability, and reservoir management. She is recognized as an industry leader in petro-technical talent attraction, development, and retention. She has coauthored papers and articles on the topics of ethics, uncertainty management, risk management, and talent management.

Howes chaired the 2024 Program Committee for SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE), received the SPE DeGolyer Distinguished Service Medal, is an Honorary Member of SPE, and served as a 2019–2020 SPE Distinguished Lecturer. She is a member of the Advisory Council at the Jackson School of Geoscience at the University of Texas (UT). Howes holds a BS degree in petroleum engineering (PGE) from the UT and was named a 2024 PGE Distinguished Alumna.

Secretary

Simon Seaton
SPE CEO and Executive Vice President
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As CEO, Simon Seaton is responsible for overall management of SPE. He works with the Board of Directors and senior staff to develop strategic and business plans and formulate the organization’s goals, objectives, policies, and programs. He also organizes and directs the global staff organization, which includes offices in Dallas, Houston, Calgary, Kuala Lumpur, and Dubai, to ensure the accomplishment of SPE’s mission.

He previously held the role of CEO, Energy and Resources, at Sodexo, a global food, facilities management, and workplace services company where he worked since 2012 in Houston, Singapore, and Dubai.

A graduate of Cardiff University and a chemist by education, his career began as a drilling fluids engineer. He spent 22 years at Halliburton in various technical, business development, and executive roles in Aberdeen, Houston, and Nigeria. Positions at Halliburton included country vice president, managing director of the UK, and senior director of deepwater solutions.

Seaton has been an SPE member for 30 years and has authored or coauthored more than 20 technical papers. In 2021 he completed the Global Energy Leadership Program at the Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University. In 2025 he was elected a Fellow of the Energy Institute and joined the National Petroleum Council in 2026. Originally from the UK, he currently resides in Houston.