Hossein Kazemi began his college education at The University of Texas at Austin in January 1957, graduated with a BS in Petroleum Engineering in January 1961, and received a PhD in Petroleum Engineering in 1963. After graduation he was hired by Sinclair Research (i.e., Sinclair Oil Corporation) as a research scientist on July 31, 1963. (Ironically, he met his future wife Bonnie on this same day and got married on July 31, 1964.) Because of Sinclair’s merger with ARCO, he was transferred to the ARCO research center in Plano, Texas, where he began modeling the freeze-thaw cycle of the Prudhoe Bay drilling platforms.

In September 1963, Dr. Kazemi joined Marathon Oil Technology Center in Littleton, Colorado, as a research scientist. At Marathon, he transitioned from scientist to manager of the engineering department (1980–1988), director of production technology research and co-director of the technology center (1988–1996), technical fellow (1996–2000), and executive technical fellow (2000).

Dr. Kazemi always enjoyed teaching and research; thus, in 1964 he began teaching operational mathematics at the University of Tulsa in the evenings while working at Sinclair Research. Later, in 1981, he began teaching evening graduate courses such as reservoir simulation at Colorado School of Mines. During this period, he also advised a number of MS and PhD students until he was appointed Chesebro’ Distinguished Chair in Petroleum Engineering in 2006. He currently holds this position and takes pride in the fact that he has supervised and graduated more than 50 PhDs and more than 20 MS students. He has authored and co-authored nearly two hundred technical papers and several book chapters, and is co-author of the book Pore Scale Phenomena. His research interests revolve around transport mechanisms in subsurface porous media with a focus on flow in nano-pores, fractured media, enhanced oil recovery and enhanced geothermal systems.

Dr. Kazemi is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (1999) and an honorary and distinguished member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (1992). He is the recipient of SPE’s John Franklin Carll Award (1987), Distinguished Technical Service Award (1991), DeGolyer Distinguished Service Medal (1995), Improved Oil Recovery Pioneer Award (2006), Rocky Mountain North America Regional Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award (2008); and Legion of Honor (2009). He is also an honorary member of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (1994).