Dear prospective students, parents, UH alumni, colleagues, and friends:
Thank you very much for your interest in our program and the degrees we offer. On behalf of all our faculty and staff, I would like to extend a warm welcome to our website, which includes an abundance of information related to offered program degrees, courses, faculty scientific expertise, current research areas/topics, a list of publications, department student chapters, advisory board, news and accomplishments of students and faculty, etc.
Our undergraduate program is accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), and is ranked sixth (6th) in the latest (2025) US News & World Report. Our graduate program is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) and rank seventh (7th) in the latest (2025) US News & World Report. Another interest statistic is that according to US News & World Report, the petroleum engineering discipline ranks among the best engineering jobs (7th) with the highest reported median salary of $131,800.
Located at the center of global energy industries, our relatively new department offers BSc, MS (thesis and non-thesis), and PhD degrees in Petroleum Engineering. Our department also offers a dual MS degree in Petroleum/Subsea Engineering, and Certificates programs in Unconventional Energy Sources and Fundamentals of Petroleum Engineering.
Our courses are taught by well-seasoned colleagues with extensive industry experience gained in both oil & gas operating companies as well as oil service companies having worked across the globe. Our faculty also includes four members of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), two members and a third fellow member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Due to our location, experts from the industry are drawn to serve as adjunct lecturers in selected key courses, thus providing further specialization to our programs and applied knowledge to our students. Our faculty brings both theoretical and practical knowledge and experience in the classroom that provide the best possible preparation for our graduates to gain employment locally, nationally and internationally.
In addition to our main core discipline of Petroleum Engineering, our research areas, and some of the currently offered courses, address Energy Transition considering Mitigation of Climate Changes, thus covering subjects such as Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS); Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS); Geothermal Energy; White/Blue Hydrogen Production/Generation; Extraction of Critical Minerals; Subsurface Energy Storage. We are working to further extend our course and degree offerings, and collaborate with our Advisory Board and the industry to better prepare our graduates to meet the ever-developing Energy Transition work requirements.
We hope that you find our teaching and research topics exciting and invite you to connect with us in case you have any follow-up questions. We very much welcome your applications to attend either our undergraduate or graduate programs, and look forward to having you in our upcoming classes, working with you in our state-of-the-art research laboratories or developing jointly niche mathematical models that help maintain the ever-increasing global energy demand in a sustainable and environmentally conscious manner to serve the mankind.
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or if you may need further assistance. We look forward to working with you, and to providing you all required support to achieve your future academic and professional goals.
Dimitrios G. Hatzignatiou, Ph.D., CEng, EURING
Interim Department Chair
Professor of Petroleum Engineering
Department of Petroleum Engineering
Cullen College of Engineering
University of Houston
Email: dghatzignatious [at] uh.edu (dghatzignatious[at]uh[dot]edu)
Phone: 713-743-9172