James Pappas is Vice President of Ultra-Deepwater Programs for RPSEA, the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America, in Sugar Land, TX. He has held the positions of Global Technology Coordinator, Facilities Engineer in the Deepwater & International Well Engineering & Facilities Division, Deepwater Project Coordinator for Devon Energy in the past, as well as Production Engineer in the Gulf of Mexico Division for Devon, and Santa Fe Snyder. He has also held drilling, completions, production, operations, reservoir, and A&D positions with Fina, UPRC, and Amoco. 

He has been involved with the Society of Petroleum Engineers for 34 years. He is both a past SPE International Production and Operations Technical Director and SPE Technical Programs and Meetings Committee Chair, and is a former chair of the SPE-Gulf Coast Section Scholarship Committee, General Meeting, Drilling Study Group, and SPE-Gulf Coast Section Board of Directors. He is a member of the GCS Scholarship and Awards/Nominating Committees, and he is past chair of the SPEI Production and Operations Award Committee. He has served on several technical program committees for the OTC, ATCE, LACPEC, SPE R&D Conference, and the SPE P&O Conference.

He is also a past Private Industry Practice Chair and Executive Committee member of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers. James has authored over 50 technical papers and spoken at conferences and interviews on various technical and professional topics. He is also advisor to the US Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy.

James earned a BS in Chemical Engineering and a BA in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin in 1979. He graduated with a MBA highest honors from the University of Texas at Tyler in 1993.

He has earned the SPE-Gulf Coast Section and SPE Gulf Coast Region Service Awards, the SPE Distinguished Service Award, as well as both the Houston Area Engineer of the Year in 2007 and Texas Engineer of the Year by the Texas Society of Professional Engineers in 2008, and he was selected Distinguished Engineer in Texas by the Texas Engineering Foundation in 2008 and an SPE Distinguished Member in 2012. He has been a Registered Professional Engineer in Texas since 1985.