An Alaska-based petroleum engineer and a Houston semiconductor executive were honored as Outstanding Young Engineering Graduates at The University of Texas at Austin College of Engineering May 16 commencement ceremony.
Eric R. Davis, P.E. (B.S.P.E. 1991, M.S.P.E. 1993) and Duy Loan Le, P.E. (B.S.E.E. 1982) received the 2003 award, which is bestowed on individuals age 40 and under for distinguished contributions in the realms of professional accomplishment, community service, and service to the UT Austin College of Engineering.
Eric Davis’ outstanding career with ConocoPhillips (formerly Conoco) began even before he left The University. By the time he received his master’s degree in 1993, with focus on petroleum engineering and geological coursework, he had already spent five summers working for Conoco, Inc. on a wide range of projects in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. When he joined the company permanently that same year, he brought with him a wealth of highly relevant and varied experience.
His path with the firm since then has been steadily upward, marked by a series of increasingly challenging and responsible positions—both in technology development and in operations—within the diverse realms of drilling, production, and completions engineering.
In his current post of completion specialist, he acts in an advisory role within the Drilling and Wells Group for ConocoPhillips Alaska operations on the North Slope and in the Cook Inlet. Completion operations deal with the design, analysis, selection, and installation of techniques and downhole equipment in the reservoir section of a drilled well, once casing has been run and cemented. This phase is specifically focused on maximizing production rates with cost-effective expenditures.
He is a world-recognized authority on sand exclusion methodologies, fracturing, frac-packing, acidizing, well performance analysis, rock mechanics and on-site completion engineering support, among other areas of interest. His operations experience includes onshore-land and arctic as well as offshore platform, floater, snubbing, and sub-sea well operations.
Davis has been a team participant in numerous industry firsts and record-setting projects: among them, the specification, design, lab-testing and field implementation of two world record 7-inch big-hole high area-open-to-flow perforating systems for two service companies. He was a member of the Conoco technical team that received a letter of commendation from the United Kingdom’s Department of Trade and Industry for excellent engineering work associated with rock mechanics, formation failure modeling and sand production prediction on Southern North Sea gas sandstones.
A registered professional engineer in Texas, he is active in the Society of Professional Engineers and acted as a far east sand control forum discussion leader and an Indonesia Well Inflow Performance Instructor for the Society of Professional Engineers. He has been an author on 11 technical publications in his fields of specialization.
Duy-Loan Le was honored three times during the UT Austin commencement ceremonies. In addition to her College of Engineering award, she was named as one of four Outstanding Young Texas Exes on May 17 by The University of Texas at Austin Ex-Students’ Association. She also served as the invited speaker for the College of Engineering’s commencement ceremonies.
Duy Loan Le overcame enormous obstacles to live the American dream as a top-level engineer and manager with Texas Instruments. Born in Saigon in 1962, she fled to the U.S. with her large family in 1975, eventually settling in Houston. Although Le knew no English on her arrival, she mastered the language fast enough to graduate from high school as class valedictorian four years later at the age of 16—all the while holding down a paid job and carrying a heavy load of chores at home.
She entered The University in 1979, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, with high honors, in just three years. Immediately after graduation, at age 19, she embarked on her extraordinary career with Texas Instruments.
Beginning as a memory design engineer (and enhancing her credentials with an M.B.A. from the University of Houston along the way), she has progressed, step by step, through a wide range of design and project management assignments, to her current leadership position as DSP advanced technology ramp manager, with worldwide responsibility for development of her firm’s signature cutting-edge digital signal processors. She holds 20 patents—including a family of five surrounding the SDRAM technology crucial to high-speed multimedia applications—with nine more pending. She is one of only five people at Texas Instruments, and the first woman, to hold the title of senior fellow, a designation equivalent to business senior vice president. Le was elected to the Board of Directors for National Instruments in 2002, a very successful public high tech company headquartered in Austin.
Le, a member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering visiting committee and UT Commission 125, is as committed to community enrichment as to technical achievement, and her outstanding service on behalf of women, minorities and charitable foundations has reaped numerous accolades. A mentor and role model for women—particularly minority women—in the engineering professions, she was included among the Top 20 Houston Women in Technology in 2000, inducted into the Women in Technology Hall of Fame in 2001, and named National Technologist of the Year at the Women of Color Conference held in Atlanta in September, 2002. She recently achieved her longtime dream of bringing soundly-built school facilities to rural Vietnam with the opening of “Thanh Thoi B”—a schoolhouse accommodating 120 elementary-age students—whose construction she played a leadership role in implementing. Her dream is to raise enough money to build 100 schools in five years. This activity complements well her similar effort in 10 other countries.
Photos may be viewed at http://www.engr.utexas.edu/news/action_shots/index.cfm
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