December 2022 OES Beacon

OES Society Awards (2022)

Jerry Carroll, Chair of IEEE/OES Nominations and Appointments Committees

Each year the Oceanic Engineering Society honors several members and volunteers through our various awards. This year, we recognized one OES member for outstanding service in furthering the objectives and activities of the Society with the Distinguished Service Award, and presented the Presidential Award to a member for consistent volunteer service to the Society. This year the awards ceremony was held during the OCEANS 2022 Conference in Hampton Roads (please enjoy the video at the following URL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bmrY5LnCeE).


John Watson receives the Distinguished Service Award from OES president Christopher Whitt.

2022 Distinguished Service Award: John Watson

 It was an honor to present this year’s Distinguished Service Award to Dr. John Watson. John was chosen for his long involvement with the OCEANS Conferences and Exhibition, serving as Chair of OCEANS Aberdeen (2007 and 2017), Reconnaissance Committee Member since 2010, OES Administrative Committee Member (2006–2011, 2013–2018), and VP for OCEANS (2019–2022).

John is Emeritus Professor of Optical Engineering at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. His research group has acquired an international reputation in underwater holography and digital holography and has developed several subsea holographic cameras to image and analyze plankton. Prof Watson was recently elevated to IEEE Fellow.

John guided OCEANS through several challenging years and can hand the reigns to the next VP OCEANS after a very successful OCEANS 2022 Hampton Roads. 2021 saw a major update to the OCEANS Conference Operating Policy (OCOP), which was an enormous undertaking. In addition to the pandemic challenges, John has advised numerous OCEANS proposals from the earliest stages through to the final conference closure.

Michael Romer receives the Presidential Award from OES president Christopher Whitt.

2022 Presidential Award: Michael Romer 

The Oceanic Engineering Society honored Michael Romer with this year’s Presidential Award for his leadership of the OES Houston Chapter (2011-2016) and long-standing commitment to the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC). Michael served on the OTC Technical Program Committee (2011-present) and on the OES Technical Program Subcommittee (2014-present).

Michael is a Principle Artificial Lift Engineer at ExxonMobil and is currently a member of the Completions & Well Management team in the ExxonMobil Upstream Integrated Solutions Company in Houston. He has been with ExxonMobil for more than 15 years, learning, deploying, developing, and teaching artificial lift solutions in US Production, Global Production Operations, and Upstream Research. Michael’s current research/technology interests include artificial lift, production surveillance and optimization, and inflow/outflow modeling.

He holds BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee and the University of Illinois, respectively. Michael was awarded Young Engineer of the Year in 2014 by the IEEE Houston Section during Engineer’s Week Houston.

Michael is the Secretary of the ALRDC Board of Directors, IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society Subcommittee Chair for the Offshore Technology Conference and is active in various SPE AL events and the API 19G Subcommittee.

The OES contribution to the OTC technical program is substantial, and our impact on that event is powered by people like Michael. Everyone who meets and works with Michael on OTC or any other activity knows that he is an incredibly smart, hard worker, and a joy to work with. Thank you for your contributions, Michael.