UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Luis F. Ayala, professor of petroleum and natural gas engineering and holder of the William A. Fustos Family Professorship in Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State, assumed the head of the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State, effective July 1.

Sanjay Srinivasan, who now serves as director of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Energy Institute, stepped down as department head on June 30, 2023, and Ayala was appointed head. For the 2023-24 academic year, Ayala was a visiting professor in Spain at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, and Russell Johns, the George E. Trimble Chair of Energy and Mineral Sciences, served as acting head until Ayala’s return.

"I am deeply honored to have been selected to lead the outstanding faculty, staff and student community of Energy and Mineral Engineering,” Ayala said. “The path ahead is exciting. Our department is uniquely positioned to spearhead curricular innovation, pursue exciting research opportunities, and address many of the technical challenges inherent to the ongoing transformation of the global energy landscape. I look forward to working alongside our students, faculty, staff and proud alumni  to continue to shape and influence the future of our field and its future leaders.”

Ayala has held many leadership positions at Penn State. He served as an administrative fellow in Penn State’s Office of the Senior Vice President for Research during the 2022-23 academic year and was a Big Ten Academic Alliance Fellow for the 2021-22 academic year. He served as associate department head for graduate education in the John and Willie Leone Family Energy and Mineral Engineering Department in Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences from 2013 to 2019.

“Professor Ayala has the broad academic experience and expertise, interpersonal skills and commitment to serving others that are the hallmarks of an outstanding department head in the making," said Lee Kump, the John Leone Dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. “I look forward to working with him for the betterment of the department and college.”

Ayala has been recognized for his extensive mentoring, advising and diversity/inclusion initiatives. He was the recipient of the University’s 2022 Howard B. Palmer Faculty Mentoring Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement by a faculty member with at least five years of service who effectively guides junior faculty. He also was recognized by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences with the Outstanding Faculty Advising Award in 2018, the Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award in 2021 and was the inaugural recipient of the Charles Hosler Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award in 2021.

Ayala is very active in the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and in 2022, he was named a distinguished member for “for his contributions as an outstanding teacher, mentor, researcher and a longstanding contributor to SPE who has attained eminence in our community.”

Ayala previously served as executive editor for the SPE Journal and former editor-in-chief of SPE’s The Way Ahead. He has served on numerous technical journal boards and SPE committees, including the Reservoir Description and Dynamics Advisory Committee, Book Development Committee, and Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition technical committees. He has received several SPE Outstanding Technical Editor awards, as well as the SPE Eastern North America Regional Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award. Most recently, he received the Regional Service Award for contributions to the SPE mission that exhibits an exceptional devotion of time, effort, thought and action.

Ayala’s research focuses on advanced computational fluid dynamics modeling applied to multiphase flow of natural gas in porous media, multiphase well performance, natural gas engineering and multicomponent thermodynamics.

During the 2016-17 academic year he was a Fulbright Scholar. He split his time as a visiting professor between the National University of Colombia at Medellin and the University of Los Andes in Bogota, teaching graduate students and guiding research projects.

Ayala joined Penn State’s faculty as an assistant professor in 2004. He was promoted to associate professor in 2010 and to full professor in 2015.

Ayala holds undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering and petroleum engineering from the University of Oriente Venezuela. He earned his master’s degree and doctoral degree, both in petroleum and natural gas engineering, from Penn State.