Badie Morsi Receives SPE Regional Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty
PITTSBURGH (July 28, 2020) — In recognition of his contributions to the field of petroleum engineering, Badie Morsi, professor and director of the Petroleum Engineering Program at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, was awarded the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ (SPE) Regional Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty.
The Award is given to a SPE member in recognition of their excellence in classroom teaching, research, advising and guiding students, and contributions to the field of petroleum engineering. Morsi is the long-standing director of Pitt’s petroleum engineering program, which offers undergraduate electives, a minor, a concentration, and an MS degree.
“Badie is an outstanding and devoted teacher who is admired by the undergraduates. He has been an enthusiastic mentor for students who have expressed an interest in petroleum engineering career,” said Steven R. Little, William Kepler Whiteford Endowed Professor and chair of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. “Badie is also an incredibly dedicated mentor to graduate students; he challenges them to excel, he spends a great deal of time providing them with valuable insights, and he guides them as they become top-notch graduates with outstanding career opportunities."
Morsi has taught at the Swanson School for 38 years, joining the faculty in 1982 after receiving his PhD in chemical engineering from the École Nationale Supérieure des Industries Chimiques (ENSIC) at the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine in Nancy, France. He developed and introduced several courses in chemical and petroleum engineering and won the Beitle-Veltri School of Engineering Teaching Award in 1999.
Morsi’s research focuses primarily on the design and scaleup of multiphase reactors; modeling, simulation and optimization of industrial processes; CO2 capture from flue gas, fuel gas and natural gas streams using chemical and physical solvents; CO2 sequestration in depleted gas/oil reservoirs and deep coal seams; and enhanced oil recovery using CO2 and alcohols. He leads the Reactor and Process Engineering Laboratory (RAPEL), which specializes in the characterization of the hydrodynamic and gas-liquid mass transfer parameters in industrial processes.
In addition to his teaching and research, Morsi serves as executive director of the Annual International Pittsburgh Coal Conference.
“Under his leadership the Pittsburgh Coal Conference has become the world’s foremost international gathering of scientists and engineers with coal-related research interests. Badie remains one of the foremost experts on hydrodynamics and mass transfer as it relates to multi-phase reactors; his high-pressure laboratory facilities are world-class systems,” said Little. “His expertise is also valued by industry experts working in large chemical plants, who turn to him for assistance in reactor design. He has also made remarkable contributions to carbon capture and geologic sequestration in coal seams and conventional reservoirs undergoing enhanced oil recovery while working extensively with researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory.”
Morsi serves as the editor-in-chief of Fuels, associate editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Clean Coal and Energy and is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Chemical Engineering and the Journal of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering. Among his numerous appointments, Morsi was selected as a fellow of the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education from 1999 to 2002, from 2005 to 2008 and from 2018 to 2019.
“Simply put, every facet of Dr. Morsi’s activities, research, academic and career advising, undergraduate and graduate education, and professional service to the scientific community, has flourished out of his knowledge, experience and passion for petroleum-related science and technology,” Little added.
Due to the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the SPE’s 2020 awards will be presented at a yet undetermined future date.
Contact: Maggie Pavlick