Nomination Procedures

Nominations are accepted September 1 – March 1.

Distinguished Lecturers are nominated by their peers, and selected by the Distinguished Lecturer Committee for quality, timeliness and relevance of presentations. We solicit nominations from each region of the world to cover all disciplines.

Nominee characteristics

Each lecturer chosen by the Distinguished Lecturer Committee is:

An expert in his or her field

An experienced and articulate public speaker who is comfortable speaking to different audiences in English in person

Willing to volunteer personal time to instruct and share knowledge with other SPE members

Willing to travel for an average of 10 presentations with tours lasting around four days or as long as two weeks

Expected to represent the Society of Petroleum Engineers as an effective ambassador for the profession and Society

To nominate

Note: The DL Committee does not accept self-nominations.

Speak to the person you are nominating in advance so they can review the requirements of the program and be prepared to complete the nomination process.
- Give the nominee sufficient notice to have all requirements completed by the deadline of 31 March (this includes two letters of recommendation). Have the nominee’s first and last name and email address ready before nomination.
Complete the online nomination form.* This will require you to have an SPE member login (Single Sign-On).
When the nomination form is complete, the nominee will receive an email requesting their participation in the program.

*Note: The deadline to submit a nomination is 1 March.

Submit a Nomination

Darcy Spady describes the importance of nominating colleagues for the Distinguished Lecturer program.

View a detailed walkthrough of the Distinguished Lecturer nomination process.

If you are nominated

You will receive an email informing you of the nomination with instructions for the online application. Complete all steps by 31 March.

Include one topic per nominee. The committee will review one topic per nominee; do not submit more than one topic.
Complete the online nomination form and upload the following required items:
- Presentation(.ppt and .pdf format) that can be given in 30 minutes and is NO LONGER THAN 40 SLIDES:
  - If desired, a link to the nominee’s online presentation such as YouTube, etc. video may be included but is not required
- Abstract/Biography
  - Abstract: Include brief description of presentation. In addition, please include an answer to the question "What is the one idea you would like the members to take away from this lecture?"
  - Abstract and biography must be on the same (.doc) in 12-point font.
  - Abstract: no more than 250 words
  - Biography: no more than 100 words
- Two separate recommendations are required
  - Only one person (nominator or either recommender) can be from the nominee’s company.
  - Your nominator cannot be one of your recommenders.

The nomination process cannot be completed unless all the required items are uploaded and submitted by the deadline of 31 March.

Selection Process

As part of the SPE Distinguished Lecturer (DL) selection process approximately 100+ nominees are evaluated by the DL Committee (DLC) to come up with the 20-24 lecturers. DLs serve nearly 160 SPE sections worldwide. The selection process is comprehensive and goes through multiple rounds detailed below.

Application Round – Potential Lecturer Selection: The DLC reviews the quality of the biography, consistency of title and the abstract, the technical content, quality of the slides and graphs, the length of the presentation and timeliness of the topic of all nominees. At the DL Committee meeting in May, all evaluations and scores are reviewed and discussed. The committee ensures diversity in topics, regions and disciplines as well as company representation. This process results in approximately 50 Potential Lecturers (PLs) being selected to continue to the next round. DLC members are assigned PLs to act as Points of Contact (POC) to help them incorporate the review comments into their next submission.

Presentation Round – In Person Presentation Review and Final Selection: The PLs are invited to present to the DLC in person at either the Eastern or Western Presentation Review Meeting. During the in-person presentations, the committee reviews 1) Quality of oral presentation, 2) Interaction with the audience, 3) and Time management. After all PLs have presented, the DLC evaluates the results. After considerable deliberation, 20-24 DLs are selected based on the scores from the review meeting, diversity, geographical and discipline distribution, ambassadorship, and other considerations. Each selected DL is again assigned a POC who is there to help the DL throughout his/her tenure.

Timeline

1 March	Deadline for submitting nomination
31 March	Deadline for nominee to submit application and two letters of recommendation
May	Distinguished Lecturer Committee selects potential lecturers Potential lecturers receive a letter to present to the DL Committee
August–October	In Person presentations are given by the potential lecturers to the DL Committee at the Presentation Review Meetings. Dates of the presentations will be sent to potential lecturers in May
November	Letter of invitation sent to all DLs that are accepted
September–June	Lecture program year