2026 Houston SPWLA Chapter Officers
President
Nelson Suarez Arcano
Pangea Geoscience
NELSON SUAREZ ARCANO, known in the industry by his moniker “NSA”, is a distinguished Petrophysics leader and innovator with a 20-year international career in the Oil & Energy industry, with a global footprint spanning six continents: The Americas, Europe, Asia, Oceania and Africa.
He currently serves as the Petrophysics and Geosteering Advisor at Pangea Geoscience in Houston. He is a Petroleum Engineer with extensive international experience in Petrophysics, Production, Geology and Geomodelling, Reservoir Engineering with a focus on business needs and priorities in onshore and offshore, surface/subsurface, consolidated carbonates and unconsolidated sandstones, deep HPHT and shallow, conventional and unconventional plays in the Oil&Gas industry.
Nelson earned a Bsc with honors (Cum Laude) in Petroleum Engineering from Universidad de Oriente (Venezuela) where he taught “Well Logging” as Adjunct Professor and Lecturer. He also holds a Msc in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot-Watt University (UK), and he got certified in Business Analytics, Finance Accounting and Economics for Managers in Harvard Business School (USA).
Nelson is author of sixteen technical papers. He has been a member of SPWLA since 2009. In 2016 he founded the SPWLA Dubai Chapter. Most recently he was elected twice SPWLA Regional Director for Middle East / Africa in 2020-2022 and for Latin America in 2022-2024. Furthermore, NSA will be honored this 2026 during the SPWLA Annual Symposium in Lake Conroe with the “SPWLA Meritorious Service Award”.
VP Northside
Ali Eghbali
Baker Hughes
Ali Eghbali is a scientist in the Physics & Metrology, Research and Technology Development team at Baker Hughes. He began his oil and gas career in 1999 as a wireline field engineer at Schlumberger (now SLB). Over his 12 years there, Ali held various roles in field operations, sales and marketing, technical assignments, and management. He then joined ConocoPhillips as a petrophysicist, where he spent 7 years researching oil sands and unconventional reservoirs in the Western Canadian Basin. Ali holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and both M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
VP Downtown
Andrew Hind
A.J. Davidoff LLC
Andrew Hind is a Petrophysics & Reservoir Engineering Principal Consultant for A.J. Davidoff LLC. His career spans 18 years in the upstream oil and gas industry. He has worked as a Field Engineer for Baker Hughes, and as a Petrophysicist for both Schlumberger and CGG. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from the University of Texas at Arlington and a Master of Petroleum Engineering degree from the University of Houston. He is an active member of SPE, AAPG, HGS, and also serves on the Geothermal Rising TXLAOK Regional Interest Group Committee.
VP Westside
Tarek Sabry-Mohamed
SLB
Tarek Sabry-Mohamed, PhD is a Senior Research and Development Engineer and a Subsurface Scientist at SLB, working on various projects spanning petrophysics, reservoir engineering, machine learning and AI, and geophysics. I am the inventor and co-leader of the new direction of forward modeling reservoir fluid geodynamics (RFG) processes over geologic time using reservoir simulation, and history-matching reservoir charge as a new way to predict fluid spatial compositional distributions in untapped regions. Dr. Sabry-Mohamed authored and co-authored over 20 technical papers accepted by several international technical organizations, including SPWLA, SPE, SEG, AAPG, and ACS, and published in peer-reviewed journals or presented at major energy conferences. His expertise includes reservoir numerical modeling and simulation, petrophysics and formation evaluation, data science and machine learning, reservoir characterization, and well-test analysis. He holds a PhD in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an MS in Petroleum Engineering and a Graduate Certificate in Data Science and Analytics from the University of Oklahoma. He received several international technical awards and recognitions, including the 2025 SLB CEO Gold Award, as well as being selected as an SPWLA Global Distinguished Speaker for 2023-2024 and an SPWLA Regional Distinguished Speaker for North America for 2024-2025.
Treasurer
Adam Haecker
Milestone
Fun Fact: Adam knows how many hydrogen atoms can dance on a pin’s head in a desktop NMR machine.
Secretary
Valarie Armenta
Intertek
Valarie Armenta works with Intertek at the Westport Technology Center, supporting business development, client relations, and technical service coordination across the energy industry. Valarie works closely with clients and internal technical teams to help connect project needs with specialized laboratory and analytical solutions. She is passionate about industry collaboration, professional growth, and helping strengthen connections within the petrophysics and energy communities. Through her involvement with Societies, she enjoys supporting opportunities for networking, education, and engagement among industry professionals.
Fun facts:
- Valarie is a proud twin mom to identical 7-year-old boys who keep her constantly on her toes and make life both chaotic and fun.
Editor
Muhammad Noman Khan
University of Houston
Webmaster
Tianmin Jiang
Conocophillips
Tianmin Jiang is a Staff Petrophysicist in Geoscience group of Conocophillips in Houston. He has more than ten years of experience in oil and gas industry. His current focus is on integrated petrophysical interpretation with novel NMR techniques. He has published numerous technical papers and has been granted four patents. In 2009-2019, he worked in Schlumberger as a petrophysicist on log analysis and interpretation. He received his BS and MS from Tsinghua University in 2002 and 2004, and his PhD from Rice University in 2009, all in Chemical Engineering. He is an active member of SPE since 2005 and SPWLA since 2010.