From the President
Jennifer Miskimins, 2026 SPE President
Jennifer L. Miskimins is a professor and the department head of the petroleum engineering department at the Colorado School of Mines (Mines), where she holds the F.H. Mick Merelli/Coterra Energy Distinguished Department Head Chair.
SPE President in the News
Journal of Petroleum Technology
Energizing Tomorrow: SPE and AI
01 May 2026
This month’s column highlights how artificial intelligence is influencing SPE programming, publications, and new tools, while also transforming day‑to‑day operations across our industry. The column explores energy supply implications and practical field applications, showing how SPE is helping members turn AI into a tool for progress.
Energizing Tomorrow: SPE’s Value Proposition
01 April 2026
What makes SPE membership truly worthwhile? Technical resources, professional development, global networking, and industry recognition—SPE membership offers more than meets the eye. In this month’s column, discover how SPE benefits members at every career stage—and why investing in your membership (or your team’s) pays off long-term.
From Denial to Acceptance: AI Emerges as Core Theme at IADC/SPE International Drilling Conference and Exhibition
18 March 2026
ExxonMobil's Jason Gahr uses the five stages of grief to explain how the upstream industry should respond to the rise of AI.
Energizing Tomorrow: Engineering Education, Upskilling, and SPE’s Role
01 March 2026
Petroleum engineering education is at a crossroads, with university enrollments shrinking and a talent gap looming. Take a look at what the data really show about degree trends, why Gen Z is turning away from engineering, and how SPE—from K–12 outreach to lifelong upskilling—is uniquely positioned to impact the industry’s future workforce.
US Energy Secretary Urges Industry To Double Oil and Gas Output
05 February 2026
Major increases in hydrocarbon production require both incremental and revolutionary technologies, industry leaders said during the SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference.
Energizing Tomorrow: SPE’s Scholarly Publishing
01 February 2026
From JPT to SPE Journal, OnePetro to technical guidance documents, SPE’s publishing portfolio is broader and more dynamic than many members may realize. In this column, I unpack the Society’s current publication options, explore how AI and open access are reshaping scholarly publishing, and share what SPE is doing to strengthen paper quality, transparency, and impact in an evolving digital landscape.
Energizing Tomorrow: SPE and AI
May 2026
This month’s column tackles an elephant in the room—or more accurately, a herd of elephants: artificial intelligence (AI) and SPE’s role in it. With the impact that AI is having on everything in today’s world, it is no surprise that it is also affecting SPE, its members, and how we are doing business now and in the future. And in the case of SPE and our members, these impacts are not just how we use AI, but also how we will be involved in supplying the electricity that is necessary to power the ever-increasing demand for this technology.
Many of you have probably seen or heard some of the numbers. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts, in its base-case scenario, that global electricity demand from data centers will grow from 460 TWh in 2024 to over...
Listen to the podcast in the embedded player above, or read the full transcript on JPT.
About Jennifer Miskimins
Jennifer L. Miskimins is a professor and the department head of the petroleum engineering department at the Colorado School of Mines (Mines), where she holds the F.H. Mick Merelli/Coterra Energy Distinguished Department Head Chair.
She has over 30 years of experience in the petroleum industry, starting with Marathon Oil Company as a production engineer. Miskimins began teaching at Mines in 2002 and has held various appointments since then. From 2013–2015, she held a part-time appointment at Mines while working at Barree & Associates. In 2016, she returned full-time to the university.
Miskimins served as the first Completions Technical Director on the SPE International Board of Directors. She was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2010–2011 and 2013–2014. She was awarded the 2014 SPE Completions Optimization and Technology Award, and in 2022, she received the SPE Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty.
Miskimins has served on a variety of conference organizing committees, including chairing the 2023 and 2024 SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Conference and Exhibition, and as a technical editor for SPE journals, including serving as the executive editor of Production & Operations for 3 years. She was the editor in chief for the 2019 SPE Monograph update “Hydraulic Fracturing: Fundamentals and Advancements.” Miskimins has served on the AIME Board of Trustees since 2018 as an SPE trustee and was the 2022 AIME president.
Miskimins holds 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.