Dr. JC Cunha is a Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University. He has occupied several managerial, operational and research positions at Petrobras, Ecopetrol America and the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Additionally, he was for 5 years a tenured professor at the University of Alberta, Canada. Cunha holds a Civil Engineering degree from Federal University of Juiz De Fora (Brazil) and MSc. and PhD. Degrees in Petroleum Engineering from Federal University of Ouro Preto (Brazil) and University of Tulsa (US) respectively. 

JC has been an active SPE member for over 30 years. He served on the SPE Board as Director of Management & Information (2014-2017) and was a SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2010-2011. Cunha was the Chair of JPT Editorial Committee (2008-2012), Chair of the Technical Communities Coordinating Committee (2013-2014), Chair of the Drilling Technical Interest Group (2004-2012), Technical Editor for JPT, SPE Drilling & Completion and SPE Journal, member and session chair of numerous SPE conferences and was among the first group of SPE members receiving the “A Peer Apart” award (2007). Besides authoring dozens of SPE technical papers, he co-authored two SPE books, Fundamentals of Drilling Engineering (2011) and Advanced Drilling and Well Technology (2009).