Susan Peterson

Dr. Susan Peterson has 35 years of experience as a consultant, project manager, senior drilling engineer, and, most recently, associate professor. She specializes in applying risk analysis and decision methods for economic models, full project development and optimization, cost and schedule models, and well drilling design. These models in turn provide the basis for selection of appropriate technology, strategizing terms and conditions, short- and long-range planning and budgeting, and risk management. She teaches Engineering Economics, Drilling Engineering, Drilling Fluids Lab, and Risky Business.

In her consulting activities, she provides both project-specific modeling expertise and training on decision and risk analysis, economic and investment analysis, and probabilistic modeling. Dr. Peterson's experience, while primarily upstream oil and gas, has also come from many other industries, including agriculture, transportation, defense, space industry, power generation and trading, television game shows, and theme parks. She has lived and/or worked in more than a dozen countries.

She has the distinction of being the first female to earn a Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University. During her advanced degrees, she achieved minors in Finance, Geology, and Statistics. Susan co-authored the Petroleum Engineer’s Handbook chapter on "Decision and Risk Analysis" with Dr. James Murtha, and has co-authored several technical papers on drilling engineering and on applied probabilistic analysis. She has recently served on the Society of Petroleum Engineers' Global Drilling Advisory Committee, and is an active member of both SPE and AADE (the American Association of Drilling Engineers). She serves as the faculty advisor for the Marietta Student Chapter of AADE.

Dr. Peterson is also the first female to be a rig-site supervisor for Marathon in their International drilling department and the first female to teach Petroleum Engineering at Marietta College when she was an Assistant Professor from 1984-90.