Dr. James G. Speight is a senior fuel and environmental consultant with more than 45 years of experience in thermal/process chemistry, thermodynamics, refining of petroleum, heavy oil, and tar sand bitumen, and physics of crude with emphasis on distillation, visbreaking, coking units, and oil-rock or oil catalyst interactions. He earned B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Manchester, England. He is the author of more than 45 books in petroleum science, petroleum engineering, and environmental sciences and has considerable expertise in evaluating new technologies for patentability and commercial application.
Although his career was focused predominantly in the commercial world, Dr. Speight has served as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Chemical and Fuels Engineering at the University of Utah and in the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Wyoming. In addition he was a Visiting Professor in Chemical Engineering at the following universities: the University of Missouri-Columbia, the Technical University of Denmark, and the University of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is recognized internationally as an expert in the characterization, properties, and processing of conventional and synthetic fuels and as a chemist with more than Speight is currently Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Petroleum Science and Technology (Taylor & Francis Publishers), Energy Sources-Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects (Taylor & Francis Publishers), Energy Sources-Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy (Taylor & Francis Publishers), and Journal of Sustainable Energy Engineering (Scrivener publishing).
As a result of his work, he was awarded the Diploma of Honor, National Petroleum Engineering Society, for outstanding contributions to the petroleum industry in 1995 and the Gold Medal of Russian Academy of Sciences (Natural) for outstanding work in the area of petroleum science in 1996. He has also received the Specialist Invitation Program Speakers Award from NEDO (New Energy Development Organization, Government of Japan) in 1987 and again in 1996 for his contributions to coal research. In 2001, he was also awarded the Einstein Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences in recognition of outstanding contributions and service in the field of geologic sciences. In 2005 he has been awarded the Gold Medal-Scientists without Frontiers, Russian Academy of Sciences in recognition of continuous encouragement of scientists to work together across international borders. More recently (2012) he was awarded a Doctorate in Petroleum Engineering from Dubna University (Moscow, Russia) for his outstanding contributions in the field of petroleum engineering.

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