Dr. Pedro Pereira Almao

Dr. Pedro R. Pereira-Almao received his PhD in Hetergeneous Catalysis from L'Universite de Poitier, France in 1979. He became an Associate professor from 1980 until 1987 with the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela and later a visiting professor and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California Berkeley-Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory where he was the R&D Leader on steam coal gasification, and methane coupling with the group of Gabor Somorjai. He made a substantial contribution at PDVSA-Intevep, Venezuela's national oil company over the course of 14 years, specializing in catalysis for heavy hydrocarbon processing and co-inventing and co-developing two major heavy oil upgrading technologies: Aquaconversion and HDHplus. He was project leader of heavy oils and residuals upgrading at PDVSA-Intevep from 1990 to 1999 and Department manager of heavy oils processing at the same institution from 2000 until 2002. Recruited by the University of Calgary in 2003 as an Alberta Ingenuity Scholar and professor for the Schulich School of Engineering, Dr. Pereira-Almao became co-Director of the Ingenuity Centre for In Situ Energy. He is the author of more than 80 published articles with more than 20 invited international conferences, and ten original patents.