Stephen A. Holditch Opening Opening Plenary Session

Birlie Bourgeois is the General Manager of Applied Technology Solutions for Shale & Tight Basins at Chevron.

Birlie has 25 years’ experience in the oil and gas industry. Since joining Chevron in 2001, he has held numerous positions of increasing responsibility globally in the areas of asset development, operations, strategy, planning, business development, technology deployment, corporate affairs, and people management.

Birlie holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Petroleum Engineering from LSU and is a licensed professional engineer in Petroleum Engineering in the state of Louisiana. He serves on the Industry Advisory Committee to the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Louisiana State University. He is married with four daughters.

Kyle Haustveit was confirmed as the 16th Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) on September 15, 2025. In this role, Haustveit oversees FECM and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) programs, managing a $5 billion research and development portfolio in coal, oil, natural gas, and critical minerals, with the goal of supporting affordable and reliable energy solutions.

Prior to joining the Department of Energy, Mr. Haustveit served as a professional petroleum engineer and geoscience manager at Devon Energy. His expertise is rooted in unconventional reservoirs, with a specific focus on completions design, diagnostics, and field development. A native of North Dakota, Mr. Haustveit represents a third generation of energy workers, maintaining strong connections to both the energy and agriculture sectors.

Throughout his career, he has led teams responsible for developing and commercializing trailblazing diagnostic techniques now utilized globally to optimize hydraulic fracturing and resource development. Subsequently, he directed an Energy Ventures team, focusing on investments in next-generation energy technologies, including geothermal, carbon capture, lithium extraction, and produced water treatment.

Mr. Haustveit holds a petroleum engineering degree from Montana Tech and an MBA in energy from the University of Oklahoma.

Dr. Jennifer L. Miskimins is a Professor and the Department Head of the Petroleum Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines, where she holds the F.H. Mick Merelli/Coterra Energy Distinguished Department Head Chair. Dr. Miskimins earned a BS from the Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology, and MS and PhD degrees from the Colorado School of Mines, all in petroleum engineering. She has over 35 years of experience in the petroleum industry, holding multiple positions in both industry and academic.

Dr. Miskimins currently serves as the 2026 SPE President. She was the first person to specifically represent the completions discipline on the SPE Board of Directors as the inaugural Completions Technical Director. In 2014, she was awarded the SPE International Completions Optimization and Technology Award, and in 2022, she received the SPE International Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty. Dr. Miskimins was the Editor-in-Chief for the 2019 SPE Monograph update Hydraulic Fracturing: Fundamentals and Advancements and would once again like to thank her coauthors, many of which are attending this conference.

As the Vice President of Upstream Technology Portfolio, James leads a dynamic team of 200+ engineers and geoscientists dedicated to delivering technology solutions for ExxonMobil’s diverse and global upstream portfolio.

James earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1996. He also holds a Masters and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Houston, which he completed in 2001.

James began his career as a Research Engineer at ExxonMobil Chemicals in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He transitioned into the Chemicals business as a manufacturing engineer and later became an Operations Supervisor. From 2007 to 2013, he held planning and commercial advisor roles around the globe. In 2013, he became ExxonMobil Chemicals Planning Manager in Houston. He then became Technical Division Manager in Baton Rouge in 2015. From 2017, he served as the Plant Manager and Vice President at Sarnia, Canada. In 2020, James transitioned to become the Vice President for Aromatics, Catalyst and Licensing in ExxonMobil Product Solutions before assuming his current role as the Upstream Technology Portfolio Vice President in 2023.

Ms. Melchert is a petroleum engineer with over 40 years’ experience in the upstream oil and gas sector including: commercial production operations, research and development, and domestic and international policy development.  She is the former Department of Energy’s (DOE) Director for Upstream Oil and Gas Research.  She began her oil and gas career with “boots in the field” in Bakersfield, CA before moving to Washington, DC where she managed the DOE’s multi-million-dollar research program in oil and gas exploration and production.  Additional assignments included working at the White House supporting the Bush-Cheney Energy Policy Task Force as part of the Energy Policy Development Group; National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling; and Transforming Produced Water from a Waste to a Resource - Water Security Grand Challenge.  She authored Chapter 2 of the textbook titled Solid-Liquid Separation Technologies:  Applications for Produced Water, CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, 2022.  

She is an alumna of the Federal Executive Institute, Charlottesville, VA; MSC Petroleum Engineering at the University of Southern California; alumna of the Women’s Executive Leadership Program in Washington, DC; and BS Soil Science, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.  Having retired from DOE in August 2021, Ms. Melchert continues her involvement in the oil and gas and subsurface sector as host of the Oil and Gas Upstream podcast, speaker, author, President of Energia Consulting LLC, serving on various advisory boards, and as a longstanding member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers International (SPE).