Akhil Datta-Gupta is professor and holder of the LeSuer Endowed Chair in Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, USA. Datta-Gupta is a recipient of SPE’s 2003 Lester C. Uren Award and is a Distinguished Member, Distinguished Lecturer, and Distinguished Author. In addition to his SPE awards, Datta-Gupta is a recipient of the AIME Rossiter W. Raymond Award and has served on numerous industry and professional society committees. He holds a BS degree from the Indian School of Mines and MS and PhD degrees in petroleum engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

Michael J. King is a senior advisor and discipline technical authority in reservoir performance prediction with BP America. He is a project manager within the advanced reservoir performance prediction R&D program, where he is involved in global technology development and deployment. King has worked for BP since 1982 in the areas of fundamentals of flow in porous media, laboratory analysis, numerical methods, and reservoir characterization. King has been an SPE Distinguished Lecturer and has served on numerous SPE and industry committees. His original training was in theoretical physics and mathematics, with a BS degree from Cooper Union and MS and PhD degrees from Syracuse University.