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AAPG Special Session

At the Forefront of Exploration and Critical Thinking: Systems Theme of the 2017 Annual AAPG Conference, and being
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) co-convener for the AAPG-sponsored, 2019 Hedberg Conference
2019 Distinguished Lecturers (AAPG; GSA Energy Geology on the evolution of petroleum systems analysis. Arango is technical
Division) reviewer for peer-review journals and serves as head of the Houston
Session Co-Chairs: Robbie Gries; Russell Stands-Over-Bull Organic Geochemistry Society, a group of petroleum system
Tuesday, 1:30–5:30 p.m., Phoenix Convention Center specialists that meets in Houston for technical talks and discussion.
AAPG Distinguished Lecturers are selected over a two-year She enjoys spending time with her family and loves to travel.
process, rewarding speakers for innovation in geoscience thinking
or geoscience career development. Similar to GSA’s James B. Susan Cunningham
Thompson Jr. Distinguished International Lectureship, the lectur- What it Takes to be Successful in Exploration
ers are selected from a global list of stellar geoscience profession- Susan M. Cunningham is an advisor for
als. AAPG Distinguished Lecturers travel throughout the globe Darcy Partners, a research company con-
presenting to societies and universities over a two-year period. necting oil and gas companies with emerg-
ing technologies. She retired from Noble
Speakers Energy in 2017, where she was most
recently executive vice president of EHSR
Irene Arango (Environment, Health, Safety and
Understanding Expulsion Capacity and Regulatory) global exploration and business innovation, after
Organic Porosity in Unconventional about 35 years of industry experience.
Petroleum Systems Before joining Noble Energy, Susan served as Texaco’s vice
Dr. Irene Arango is a senior geochemist president of core worldwide exploration from April 2000 to March
with Chevron’s Energy Technology 2001. Employed by Statoil from 1997 through 1999, she was
Company, where she has worked for the responsible for West Africa exploration as well as vice president
past 12 years as an internal geochemical of deepwater Gulf of Mexico exploration. She began her career in
consultant on exploration and development 1980 in Calgary as a geologist at Amoco Canada. She moved to
projects worldwide. Arango has served as principal investigator Houston in 1981 to join Amoco’s International Region and held
in research projects on topics including pre-drill risk assessment various exploration and development positions including manag-
of non-hydrocarbon gases in reservoirs (e.g., CO , H S) and geo- ing director of Denmark, based in Copenhagen, and deepwater
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chemistry of unconventional plays. She has worked on identifi- Gulf of Mexico exploration manager.
cation of geochemical indicators of core areas and sweet spots Active in the industry and the community, Susan served as
in tight reservoirs, on the evaluation of processes controlling chair of the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in 2010
unconventional reservoir properties such as organic porosity and and 2011, representing AAPG. She served on the board of Cliffs
retention capacity, and on the assessment of oil fingerprints for Natural Resources, an iron ore and metallurgical coal mining
improved unconventional field development. Arango has pre- company from 2005 to 2014. She is currently serving on the
sented some of her work at AAPG, URTeC, and IMOG confer- board of Oil Search, an oil and gas company. She also served
ences and recently co-authored a review paper in Organic on the boards of the Houston Area Women’s Center and the
Geochemistry on organic porosity from a geochemical perspec- Houston Geological Society.
tive. She was the recipient of AAPG’s Gabriel Dengo Memorial Susan holds a bachelor’s degree in geology and physical geogra-
Award in 2014 in recognition of the best AAPG paper presented phy from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. She also com-
during the 2013 AAPG International Conference (“Evaluating pleted a management program through Rice University’s Office of
hydrocarbon expulsion efficiency from shale reservoirs”). Executive Development.
Arango is the coordinator of Chevron’s Hydrocarbon Charge
Training Program and has presented classes for AAPG and at Michael Hudec
universities. Prior to her work at Chevron, she worked for Ecopetrol Evolution of the Salina del Bravo, Mexico:
as a development geologist in the Llanos Basin (Colombia). Arango The Bravo Trough, Sigsbee Canopy, and
received her Ph.D. in geology with emphasis in geochemistry from Perdido Fold Belt
Indiana University (2006), an M.S. (geology with minor in biology) Dr. Michael Hudec is a senior research
from Indiana State University (2002), and an undergraduate degree scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology
in geology from the National University of Colombia (1998). She is and directs the Applied Geodynamics
an active member of AAPG, serving as session chair and judge of Laboratory (AGL), an industry-sponsored
poster and oral sessions at various AAPG conferences, acting as research consortium studying salt tectonics.
co-chair of the Geochemistry, Basin Modeling, and Petroleum He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wyoming in 1990, and

18 GSA Today | August 2019