Dr. Hasaan Rauf
Dr. Rauf established his academic legitimacy by earning a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Houston, where his research on organometallic catalysts garnered publication in prominent ACS journals. Previously, he obtained degrees from San Jose State University and the University of Texas at Austin. Since joining Vapor Point as Lead Chemist in 2024, Dr. Rauf has utilized his intrinsic expertise to advance VOx technology. Moreover, he has elucidated the mechanisms of sulfur chain ligand formation; therefore, enabling the production of recoverable elemental sulfur without additional reagents. Furthermore, he bridges the division between laboratory theory and field operations. While he orchestrates patent development, his primary focus remains the transition of bench-scale discoveries into practical commercial deployments, serving as a cornerstone for SMIT’s strategic advancement.
Jim Maddocks
Jim graduated from the University of Calgary in 1984 with a Bachelors degree in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. For over 30 years he was the Vice President of Engineering and was the CEO of Gas Liquids Engineering for 4 years retiring in 2022. He has over 41 years’ experience in gas treating projects and is continuing to provide engineering consulting services for AGI and energy projects. Jim has provided the process engineering and project management of over 1,300 projects in his career and has worked on many acid gas injection projects beginning in 1994 and continuing today with engineering design, development, spec’s, start-up, and troubleshooting. Jim is a co-inventor of DexPro® – a patented acid gas dehydration technology currently being employed through the DexPro® corporation globally
Hien Cao
Hien Cao is a Global Technology Manager at BASF. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 2012, Hien spent nearly a decade in the chemical industry at ExxonMobil and a brief period as an account manager at Baker Hughes in the petrochemical treatment business. His current focus is on CO₂, H₂, and syngas purification at BASF.
Romulo Tobias
Romulo Tobias is currently a project manager for a large service company who has been doing chemical cleaning using both traditional and vapour phase cleaning in gas plants, chemicals plants, and refineries across Canada for 5 plus years. He has been a Professional Engineer and professional project manager for more than 10 years and has been a Technical Support Engineer for 5 years in western Canada. He coaches for junior high school/club basketball and community teams. His goal is to help and educate industry colleagues on the vapour phase cleaning methodologies for safe access and to reduce issues during start up and operations.
Fiona George
Fiona George is a chartered chemical engineer and Fellow of the IChemE, currently working as a Senior Specialist in Process Engineering for Worley Comprimo in London. Fiona has extensive design experience primarily in offshore and onshore Oil and Gas Processing, Gas Treating, Carbon Capture and Sulphur Removal. Her experience has included “green field” and major plant revamps in conceptual, FEED and detailed design phases of projects. Fiona is a global Subject Matter Expert for Acid Gas Treating, Carbon Capture and Gas Processing and her roles and responsibilities vary depending on the project requirements. In addition to technical responsibilities, Fiona serves on the management committee of GPA Europe, contributing to the advancement of industry standards and best practices.
Suresh Jayaraman
Dr. Jayaraman earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Anna University in India, followed by a master’s degree in environmental engineering from the University of Houston, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Oklahoma State University. He is currently with AVEVA, where he began his career in the Research and Development team for the AVEVA Process Simulation. He currently serves as a Lead Consultant, leading simulation and optimization projects and supporting customers across the chemical, oil and gas, and sustainability industries.
Ray McKaskle
Ray McKaskle is a registered professional engineer with over 33 years of process engineering experience. He holds a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Oklahoma State University. Ray’s areas of expertise include CO2 purification, compression, and pumping. He has hands-on experience executing CCUS projects from small pilot-scale tests up to a 300 MMscfd CO2 injection system for a commercial client. Ray has presented at leading CCUS conferences more than 30 times and has more than 20 publications on this topic. His broad CO2 experience is balanced with many projects in other industries including oil and gas, utility power, and ethanol, with a frequent focus on air pollution control technologies.
Jeff Gomach
Jeff Gomach is Senior Vice President of Merichem Technologies and responsible for projects, engineering, and research of Merichem's sulfur treatment and fiber film reactor technology portfolio. Jeff has worked at Merichem for 14 years and has patents in mercaptan, carbonyl sulfide, and hydrogen sulfide removal techniques. Past employers include Topsoe and the United States Air Force Research Laboratory, he also holds a Masters in Chemical Engineering from the University of Dayton.
Nachiketa Anand
Nachiketa Anand is Research Director at Merichem Technologies and is responsible for catalyst and engineering research where she has worked for 20 years. She holds six patents in catalytic fiber technology. Prior to Merichem Nachiketa worked for Sabic Americas and holds a Masters in Chemistry from the University of Houston.
Jane Varela
Jane Varela graduated from Rice University in 1996 and spent 25 years working for engineering contractors. In 2021 she transitioned to DCP Midstream, which was then acquired by Phillips 66. She currently leads the ICC Engineering team out of Denver, Colorado, which supports the Phillips 66 midstream gas plants. Her expertise includes gas treating, CO2 capture, and sulfur removal and recovery. She spent 8 years on the Laurance Reid Gas Conditioning Conference advisory committee and recently joined the GPA Research Committee. Jane has authored and presented over 10 industry publications at conferences including the Brimstone Sulfur Symposium, Laurance Reid Gas Conditioning Conference and GPA Midstream Annual Convention.
Prashanth Chandran
Prashanth Chandran is the Technical Development Lead at Optimized Gas Treating, the role he has been holding since 2021. He joined OGT in 2018 as a Development Engineer. At OGT, Prashanth has developed and implemented several models and algorithms in ProTreat®, including robust and fast flash algorithms, reaction kinetics and equilibrium solvers, and a fixed bed catalytic reactor model. He has also led major product advancements including the release of the hybrid solvents thermodynamic package, expansion of sulfur plant modeling capability, and development of general-purpose mass and heat transfer rate models. Prashanth holds a B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from India and an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Oklahoma State University.
Mark Bothamley
Mark Bothamley is an independent consultant specializing in oil and gas processing and associated facilities and is President of Mark Bothamley Consulting, LLC. He also teaches several engineering courses for PetroSkills/John M. Campbell & Co (JMC). Mr. Bothamley was Chief Engineer with JMC in Norman, Oklahoma for 8 years. Prior to joining JMC he was with Amoco, and then BP, for 24 years, in several locations around the world, starting in Alberta, Canada. His experience covers the areas of design, operation, troubleshooting and optimization of offshore and onshore oil and gas production and treating facilities. Mr. Bothamley holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, and a Diploma in Natural Gas and Petroleum Technology from the British Columbia Institute of Technology in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
Emily Ruhl
Emily Ruhl is the Tray Technology Leader Americas for Koch-Glitsch . She manages the tray product line for Koch-Glitsch and specializes in tray design, tower operation, and troubleshooting with 13 years of experience. She is also the instructor for the tray and troubleshooting sessions of Koch-Glitsch’s Mass Transfer School. She has a background in gas processing before specializing in mass transfer and holds MS and BS degrees from the University of Oklahoma.
Dr. Shima Masoumi
Dr. Shima Masoumi is a chemical engineer with a diverse background in industrial and academic research. Academically, she conducted postdoctoral research in biomass gasification and catalytic synthesis at NCAT State University and earned a Ph.D. in biofuels and life cycle assessment from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. Currently, she works as a senior R&D Engineering Specialist in Dow Industrial Solution, Refining & Processing R&D. She supports customer design inquiries and leads R&D projects focused on developing innovative solutions for acid gas removal using solvent technology.
Dr. Armin Hassanzadeh
Dr. Armin Hassanzadeh is a Research Scientist at The Dow Chemical Company with more than 18 years of experience in gas treating technologies for complex acid gas streams. Armin specializes in hybrid solvent applications, total sulfur removal, and advanced acid gas removal processes tailored for challenging environments such as syngas/ammonia plants and high-pressure systems. His work includes developing innovative solutions for CO₂ and H₂S removal, optimizing solvent systems for efficiency and reliability, and contributing to industry best practices through technical presentations at conferences like Nitrogen + Syngas, LRGCC, and GPA.
Rieks de Rink
Rieks de Rink has been Technology Manager at Paqell since 2022. He received an MSc degree in Bioprocess Engineering and a PhD in Environmental Technology from Wageningen University & Research. He joined Paqell in 2015 as a process technologist and specialized in the biological desulfurization technology ‘Thiopaq O&G’ and in bio-electrochemical systems (BES). One of his main responsibilities is supporting the start-up and operation of (new) full-scale Thiopaq O&G plants, for which he worked in Indonesia, Egypt, Australia, USA, Oman and Iraq. Dr. de Rink was involved in the development of Thiopaq O&G ULTRA, and BES systems e-Thiopaq to convert H2S into H2, and Power-2-Methane to convert CO2 into CH4. He has 10 patents in his name. In his free time, he loves to take his racing bike for a tour or go for a run.
Matthew Cunningham
Matthew Cunningham is a Project Engineer at Williams in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he designs and executes facilities and compression projects for company assets west of Mississippi. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Oklahoma State University and brings five years of experience across midstream compression, gas plants, and gas treating. Cunningham is presenting his paper on behalf of Williams, marking his first time as a presenter at LRGCC and his second year attending the conference.
Please email your bio and slide presentation to:
Christopher Guthrie
Program Director
Email: cdguthrie@ou.edu
