John Lee holds the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished University Chair at the University of Houston’s petroleum engineering program. Prior to this, Lee held the L.F. Peterson Chair in petroleum engineering at Texas A&M University. He was the former executive vice president of S.A. Holditch & Associates, where he specialized in reservoir engineering for unconventional gas reservoirs. He served as an academic engineering fellow with the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington during 2007–2008, and was a principal architect of the new SEC rules for reporting oil and gas reserves.

Prior to beginning is career in academia, Lee managed Exxon’s Major Fields Study Group. He has written many technical papers and three SPE textbooks: Well Testing, Gas Reservoir Engineering, and Pressure Transient Testing. Lee is a Distinguished Member of SPE, a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. He received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in chemical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.