Petroleum & Geological Engineering

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COVID-19 RESPONSE OU TOGETHER

The University of Oklahoma honored 10 exceptional OU alumni and friends with Regents’ Alumni Awards in recognition of their dedication and service to OU. The awards were presented to this year’s honorees in an Oct. 15 ceremony on the OU Norman campus.

Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering alum Ashley Zumwalt-Forbes is recognized as the Young Alum Honoree.

While a student at OU, Zumwalt-Forbes was an active and engaged student. She interned with the Center for the Creation Economic Wealth and was active in the Campus Activities Council, Crimson Club, Student Government Association, Soonerthon and Howdy Week. She was the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Letzeiser Award; Outstanding Freshman, Sophomore and Junior; and selection to PE-ET Honor Society.

Zumwalt-Forbes graduated summa cum laude from OU in 2012 with a bachelor of science degree in petroleum engineering and also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

An engineer with nine years’ experience in acquiring, financing and developing both greenfield and brownfield natural resources projects around the globe, Zumwalt-Forbes currently serves as a director, co-founder and president of Black Mountain Metals, a private battery metals mining company; Black Mountain Exploration, a private natural gas company; and Black Mountain CarbonLock, a private carbon negative company.

She also serves on the Strategic Advisory Board for Hennessy Capital’s fifth SPAC (NASDAQ: HCICU), the Female Venture Fund, Texas Christian University’s Energy Institute, Polestar (Volvo’s EV brand) and the School of Petroleum Engineering in the Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy. Prior to joining Black Mountain in 2017, Zumwalt-Forbes worked in several lead engineering roles at ExxonMobil and XTO Energy, managing drilling, completions and planning aspects of international shale exploration, laying the groundwork for a $1 billion capital deployment. She was recently highlighted as the featured honoree on the 2020 Forbes 30 under 30 in Energy list.

Zumwalt-Forbes was recognized in 2020 as a Young Engineering Alumni, Pursuit of Excellence Class Member. This class shines a light on young alumni who are actively pursuing excellence and using their time, talent and treasure to pay it forward at OU and in their communities. This class uses their platform to model to other young alumni how to be engaged and find their voice. She is also a member of the Trailblazer Society and OU President’s Associates.

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Congratulations to the OU Sooners Geothermal team for achieving second place in Department of Energy Geothermal Collegiate Competition.

The national contest engages students to develop innovative geothermic energy applications to heat and cool buildings, campuses, districts, and communities. In March, Geothermal Technologies Office announced the 15 finalist teams, which represented 17 academic institutions.

“Second Place - University of Oklahoma. The submission identifies a number of hydrocarbon wells that can be converted to geothermal wells for heating and cooling in the local community”

The team is under the supervision of Dr. Saeed Salehi.

DOE Geothermal Competition Finalists

Our female engineers represented the SPE University of Oklahoma at the Southwest Alliance for Girls' Enrichment in Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts / Humanities, and Mathematics Summer Camp.

Camp is a week-long residential program held on SWOSU’s Weatherford campus each summer. Students get hands-on experience in science experiments, technology applications, design and building, writing reflections, and math applications while interacting with other girls like them.

Members also spoke to about their lives as female engineers, what influenced their interests in Engineering, SPE and how they are adding value with our career choices.