Shane W Potter

Real-world experience can be vital to a student’s development, and Slippery Rock University engineering students will be getting just that with a company’s donation of engineering software.

According to SRU’s website, its petroleum and natural gas engineering program recently received a software donation valued at $3.8 million from Petroleum Experts Inc., an international company known as Petex that develops engineering software for the petroleum industry.

This donation, which was accepted by the SRU Foundation on behalf of the university, will allow students to use the same advanced software that oil and natural gas professionals use in the field with the company's Integrated Production Modeling software.

The software is a suite of programs used by companies to model their complete oil and gas production systems, including reservoirs, wells and the surface network.

“This is a significant advancement for the program to have access to this software,” said Mohammad Kazemi, associate professor of physics and engineering and director of SRU's School of Engineering. “We are building the foundation for the program, and this software will help better prepare our students for careers in petroleum and natural gas engineering.”

SRU, which started its petroleum and natural gas engineering program in 2016, will have 10 educational licenses that will provide students access to Petex's software.

Nicole Dafoe, dean of College of Engineering and Science, along with the SRU Foundation board of directors and its executive director, Dave Hollenbaugh all played a role in helping the university obtain access to the software.