Engineering Spotlight Mohammad A. Alkazimi

Engineering Spotlight Mohammad A. Alkazimi Engineering Spotlight Mohammad A. Alkazimi Engineering Spotlight: Mohammad A. Alkazimi Graduate Student, Missouri University of Science and Technology Rolla, MO Mohammad A. Alkazimi holds a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering (1998) and a Master degree in Industrial Engineering (1999) from the University of Toledo in Ohio. Post-graduation he joined the Kuwait Oil Company (1999-2009) working as an engineer. Part of his responsibilities at Kuwait Oil was to assure compliance with Health, Safety and Environment Group roles and regulation when executing tasks at any of the companys crude oil facilities. In 2009, he had the opportunity to earn a PhD in Petroleum Engineering at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, MO. His latest research and SERAD paper is focused on Environmental and Infrastructure Risk Matrices of Underwater Explosion as Oil Spill Risk Mitigation Technique examining the risk, and potential consequences, of utilizing geometrically configured explosives to seal an underwater oil pipeline. His advisor, Dr. Katie Grantham from the Engineering Management and System Engineering Department at Missouri ST, came up with the initiative after BPs Deepwater Horizon Oil leak where it left significant environmental and economic consequences. Mohammad states, Her expertise in reliability, risk assessment and failure prevention was great asset for this work and her collaboration with the Mining Engineering Department made this aspect of the research possible. This research /SERAD paper provides risk matrices with respect to impact consequence when utilizing configured explosives to both marine environmental and the nearby infrastructure. As a result, knowing the potential outcome will be significant to the emergency response teams to whether or not the utilization of this method would be applicable for usage as one of the possible solutions in restraining a disaster similar to BPs. Mohammad would like to expand this work to establish standard risk matrices to cover different techniques in containing offshore oil leaks. Mohammad credits his parents for inspiring him to go into engineering. His father was an Assistant Civil Engineer in the General Department of Traffic in Kuwait. Mohammad explains, My fathers passion for his work inspired me to love his way of thinking and problem solving. We both love cars and motorcycles, so I guess that too influenced my selected field. My mother always inspired me to be a prosperous in any academic discipline I choose. Engineering, to her, is prestigious and has a lot of potential and she was my guide. Mohammad intends to pay it forward and be a good mentor to young engineers as they strive for success in their field of interest. He offers the following advice for young engineers, I strongly encourage early career engineers and students to seek for knowledge and try to explore more about your fields. Try to attend more conferences, conventions, and forums where you can meet different people with different perspective as well as networking. More importantly he stress early career engineers should incorporate [safety/risk analysis] in their work, Risk analysis and safety concepts at an early stage will create a notion of thinking outside the box and enhances the soft skills that engineers tend to neglect while focusing on the technical aspect of their research/work. He also offers a quote from Tom MorrisProblems are just lifes way of getting the best out of us.