2026 winner of the best graduate student paper award

Shahab Ghasemi, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada Shahab (Sean) Ghasemi, PhD, E.I.T., is a Reservoir Engineer and University Instructor based in Calgary, Alberta. He leads reservoir performance assessment, short- and long-term forecasting, and optimization studies in collaboration with multidisciplinary engineering and geoscience teams. In parallel, he teaches at the University of Calgary, delivering courses in waterflooding and enhanced oil recovery that connects foundational theory with real-world subsurface applications. Shahab completed his PhD in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Calgary (GPA A), with research focused on heat and mass transfer in wells and porous media across pore-to-field scales. His work blends analytical modelling, numerical simulation, and experimental validation, with contributions that improve computational efficiency for complex subsurface systems. He holds an MSc in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Tehran and a BSc in Petroleum Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, where he ranked first among petroleum engineering students. His research interests include enhanced oil recovery, geothermal systems, lattice-based methods, and machine learning for subsurface energy.1 He is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship, Graduate Student Research Impact Excellence Award, and Geothermal Canada Student Scholarship, recognizing both his research impact and academic excellence. Shahab Ghasemi: Writing – original draft; writing – review and editing. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.