Alyafei named Energy Influencer for 2020
Published Apr 28, 2020
Texas A&M University at Qatar’s Dr. Nayef Alyafei has been named an Energy Influencer for 2020 by The Way Ahead, a publication of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).
Alyafei is a Class of 2009 petroleum engineering graduate of Texas A&M at Qatar, a Qatar Foundation partner university, and an assistant professor in the Petroleum Engineering Program.
After completing his Ph.D. in petroleum engineering from Imperial College London in 2015, Alyafei joined the Texas A&M at Qatar faculty, becoming the youngest faculty member in the department and the first Texas A&M at Qatar graduate to join the faculty of the branch campus. He recently published his first textbook, Fundamentals of Reservoir Rock Properties, as well as two educational magazines.
Alyafei is considered a role model to his students and colleagues due to his outstanding service in teaching, research and outreach. He plays an active role in providing guidance to the student body and is an advisor to Texas A&M at Qatar’s SPE student chapter. He has previously won the university’s Teaching Excellence Award and the Texas A&M University Association of Former College-level Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching — the youngest faculty member to receive these awards and also the first time for an assistant professor to receive them. In 2018, he was named Texas A&M at Qatar’s Alumnus of the Year for his teaching and mentoring activities.
With his ability to present challenging engineering and fundamental concepts in a lucid manner, Alyafei is considered an inspirational teacher by his students. In the classroom, his enthusiasm and teaching skills are readily apparent, and this creates an inspiring learning environment for the students. His contributions have strengthened Texas A&M at Qatar’s reputation in Qatar and regionally. He regularly leads many of the university’s STEM initiatives, helping the university recruit the highest quality Qatari and other students to enroll in its engineering programs.
In a short time, Alyafei generated more than $2.5 million in research grants. He leads a research group that focuses on understanding multiphase flow in porous media at the micro and macro scales — in particular, on wettability and spontaneous imbibition studies both experimentally and numerically.
Dr. César Octavio Malavé, dean of Texas A&M at Qatar, said that Alyafei has taken on the responsibility for educating future generations of engineering leaders in Qatar.
"In everything he does — whether in the classroom or the lab, or when he volunteers his time to our ongoing STEM outreach activities — Dr. Nayef Alyafei leads by example,” Malavé said. “Nayef truly embodies the Texas A&M core values of excellence, integrity, leadership, loyalty, respect and selfless service, and we are proud to call him an Aggie engineer.”