Dr. David S. Schechter

Department Chair of the Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering · Louisiana State University · company speakers →

Dr. David S. Schechter serves as Department Chair of the Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering at Louisiana State University (LSU). With more than three decades of leadership in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) and CO₂ management, he has built an international reputation in surfactant EOR, wettability alteration, and carbon utilization and storage. He earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Bristol (UK). He began his academic career at Stanford University and later served as Senior Scientist and Interim Director of the Petroleum Recovery Research Center at New Mexico Tech, where he led a $13 million U.S. Department of Energy project on CO₂ injection and sequestration in the Permian Basin. He subsequently held a professorship at Texas A&M University before joining LSU. Dr. Schechter also serves as Vice President of Reservoir Engineering at EORETC and Chief Technology Officer at Third Wave Production, bridging academic research with field-scale implementation. He has delivered more than 90 industry short courses across 18 countries and has authored over 170 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers. Dr. Schechter is a 2026 recipient of the SPE Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) Pioneer Award. He is also a Distinguished Member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, an honor awarded to fewer than 1% of SPE’s global membership.

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