About the Authors

Djebbar Tiab is a senior professor of petroleum engineering at the

University of Oklahoma, and a petroleum engineering consultant. He
received his B.Sc. (May 1974) and M.Sc. (May 1975) degrees from the New
Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and his Ph.D. degree (July
1976) from the University of Oklahoma, all in petroleum engineering. He is
the director of the University of Oklahoma Graduate Program in Petroleum
Engineering in Algeria.
At the University of Oklahoma, he taught 15 different petroleum and gen-
eral engineering courses including well-test analysis, petrophysics, oil reser-
voir engineering, natural gas engineering, and properties of reservoir fluids.
Dr. Tiab has consulted for a number of oil companies and offered training
programs in petroleum engineering in the United States and overseas. He
worked for over 2 years in the oil fields of Algeria for Alcore, S.A., an asso-
ciation of Sonatrach and Core Laboratories. He has also worked and con-
sulted for Core Laboratories and Western Atlas in Houston, Texas, for 4
years as a senior reservoir engineer advisor.
As a researcher at the University of Oklahoma, he received several
research grants and contracts from oil companies and various U.S. agencies.
He supervised 23 Ph.D. and 94 M.S. students at the University of Oklahoma.
He is the author of more than 150 conference and journal technical papers.
In 1975 (M.S. thesis) and 1976 (Ph.D. dissertation), he introduced the pres-
sure derivative technique, which revolutionized the interpretation of pressure
transient tests. He developed two patents in the area of reservoir characteri-
zation (identification of flow units). Dr. Tiab is a member of the U.S.
Research Council, Society of Petroleum Engineers, the Society of Core
Analysts, Pi Epsilon Tau, Who is Who, and American Men and Women of
Science. He served as a technical editor of various SPE, Egyptian, Kuwaiti,
and U.A.E. journals, and as a member of the SPE Pressure Analysis
Transaction Committee. He is a member of the SPE Twenty-Five Year Club.
He has received the Outstanding Young Men of America Award, the
SUN Award for Educational Achievement, the Kerr McGee Distinguished
Lecturer Award, the College of Engineering Faculty Fellowship of
Excellence, the Halliburton Lectureship Award, the UNOCAL Centennial
Professorship, and the P&GE Distinguished Professorship. In October 2002,
Dr. Tiab was elected to the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences as a for-
eign member because of his outstanding work in petroleum engineering. In
October 2002, he was also awarded the Kapista Gold Medal of Honor for

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his outstanding contributions to the field of engineering. He received the

prestigious 1995 SPE Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum
Engineering Faculty. The citation read, He is recognized for his role in stu-
dent development and his excellence in classroom instruction. He pioneered
the pressure derivative technique of well testing and has contributed consid-
erable understanding to petrophysics and reservoir engineering through his
research and writing. He is also the recipient of the 2003 SPE Formation
Evaluation Award for distinguished contributions to petroleum engineering
in the area of formation evaluation.

Erle C. Donaldson began his career as a pilot plant project manager for
Signal Oil and Gas Research in Houston, Texas. Later he joined the U.S.
Bureau of Mines Petroleum Research Center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, as a
project manager of subsurface disposal and industrial wastes and reservoir
characterization; when the laboratory transferred to the U.S. Department of
Energy, Dr. Donaldson continued as the chief of petroleum reservoir charac-
terization. When the laboratory shifted to private industry for operations, he
joined the Faculty of the School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering at
the University of Oklahoma as an associate professor. Since retiring from the
university in 1990, he has consulted for various oil companies, universities,
and U.S. agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S.
Naval Ordnance Center, King Fahd Research Institute of Saudi Arabia, and
companies in the United States, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Thailand. He
is currently the senior consulting engineer for Tetrahedron, Inc.
Dr. Donaldson has earned four degrees: a B.Sc. in chemistry from The
Citadel, an M.S. in organic chemistry from the University of South Carolina, a
B.Sc. in chemical engineering from the University of Houston, and a Ph.D. in
chemical engineering from the University of Tulsa. He has served as the chair-
man of committees and sessions for the Society of Petroleum Engineers and
the American Chemical Society, as well as other national and international
conferences. He was the managing editor of the Journal of Petroleum Science
and Engineering for 20 years. He is a member of the SPE Twenty-Five Year
Club.