In the ever-evolving field of energy, one graduate student at UH – The Energy University
® – is making a name for himself through groundbreaking research in hydraulic fracturing.
At the 2025 SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference and Exhibition, the SPE
Hydraulic Fracturing Technical Section awarded the recipients its Outstanding Graduate
Student Award, recognizing exceptional research in hydraulic fracturing. The 2025
awardees included Mohamed Adel Gabry.
“My research is about finding practical applications for the industry. We submitted for three patents and published ten papers from my dissertation,” Gabry explained. “It has wide applications in the oil industry. So that's why I submitted my profile and my research background. And they selected me.”
Early Inspiration and Academic Journey
Mohamed’s path to the University of Houston began with 14 years in industry with ten of those years in Egypt as a subsurface engineer.
“This is a practical industry, so I don't want to produce solutions just for books,” he says. “I need to introduce innovation with practice. So, the main advantage of my research is we are building an app that we can give to Exxon, Hess, Oxy or any operator or service company to use in their operations.”
Revolutionary Research in Hydraulic Fracturing
Mohamed’s award-winning research focuses on developing one method to minimize expenses in fracking. He is creating a machine learning technique that introduces practical generic solutions that can even enable AI.
“The main thing is to find a technique that doesn't rely on physical assumptions,” he explained. “For example, if I have a complex physical problem like subsurface formations, typically scientists set assumptions and then they solve based on these assumptions. However, there are a lot of schools in interpretations of this technique as each one has its own assumptions. In fracture closure interpretation for example: since 1978, there's a lot of these different methods. But each method has this limitation.”
Gabry’s research is attempting to find another path.
“My technique is to use a generic solution based on the data. It can be applied regardless the simplifying assumptions, and I can find the solution consistently which fit different level of data complexity.”
Another major facet of his research focuses geothermal.
“We are in process right now to expand it not only for oil and gas but for geothermal applications. For example, one of my chapters in my dissertation is to predict the fracture geometry for geothermal applications. If a company wants to optimize their enhanced geothermal systems , our technique can cut the cost of micro-seismic events by using our technique to produce micro-seismic events which can cut the total cost significantly.”
Acknowledgment and Recognition
At the SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference and Exhibition on February 4th, recipients of the Outstanding Graduate Student Award were selected based on their resumes, recommendation letters, and summary of technical contributions that may have resulted in a conference presentation and/or a journal publication of topics related to state-of-the-art technology and future needs of hydraulic fracturing. Mohamed received a $750 stipend and an award certificate.
“I had such great direction. My advisor Doctor Mohamed Soliman is a legend in fracturing. I was just doing my research and he approached me about submitting. He wrote me the recommendation letter.”
Looking Ahead: The Future of Fracking and Mohamed’s Work
As Mohamed prepares to finish his app, his vision for the future of hydraulic fracturing remains focused on cost saving.
“We are confident with our technique. We are right now working on [making] it easy. To publish it as a user friendly app. We are building toward maybe in next few months.”
For now, Mohamed says the University of Houston is the right place for him. “I chose Houston because most of the engineering professors have an industry background. I don't want to be just doing fancy equations. It's good to start a new idea, but the main thing is to get the ideas out of the lab and into the industry.”