Postdoctoral Researcher (Summer 2027) – Applied Artificial Intelligence for Petroleum Engineering

Position Summary

The Houston Research Center's AIT Team is seeking a Postdoctoral Researcher to develop and deploy next-generation AI solutions for complex petroleum industry challenges. You will conduct applied research combining machine learning, physics-based modeling, and petroleum engineering, working with world-class researchers and domain experts on real-world upstream problems to create measurable business value for Saudi Aramco.

Key Responsibilities

AI Research and Development

- Develop machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI solutions for upstream oil and gas applications.
- Investigate emerging methods such as LLMs, agentic AI, Physics-Informed Neural Networks, Fourier Neural Operators, Graph Neural Networks, foundation models, and reinforcement and Bayesian learning.
- Design algorithms that integrate domain physics with data-driven methods.

Petroleum Engineering Applications

Apply AI to reservoir characterization and modeling, production forecasting and optimization, drilling and geosteering, virtual flow metering, shale development, enhanced oil recovery and carbon management, and predictive maintenance.

Digital Transformation and Deployment

- Build production-ready AI tools and workflows for Saudi Aramco operations, working with software engineers to move prototypes into enterprise applications.
- Use cloud, HPC, and GPU environments, and support AI integration into digital twin and decision-support systems.

Required Qualifications

Education

- Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering, Computer Science, Data Science, AI, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Geoscience, or a related field.

Technical Requirements

- Strong knowledge of machine learning and statistical modeling.
- Strong Python and scientific computing skills, including ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, Scikit-Learn, and XGBoost.
- Experience handling large-scale scientific or engineering datasets.

Research Experience

Experience in one or more of: petroleum engineering applications, physics-informed or scientific machine learning, reservoir simulation, geostatistics, computer vision, time-series forecasting, optimization and uncertainty quantification, and generative AI and foundation models.

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience developing AI solutions for oil and gas, with publications in AI, machine learning, petroleum engineering, or computational science.
- Knowledge of reservoir simulation software and workflows.
- Experience with HPC, GPU acceleration, and cloud computing; familiarity with MLOps and enterprise-scale AI deployment.
- Experience with digital twins, autonomous workflows, and intelligent agents.

Why Join Us

At Aramco Americas HRC, you will tackle some of the world's most challenging energy problems using unique datasets, state-of-the-art computing, and direct access to field applications.

Opportunity eligible for internship course credit (credits earned), please check with your Academic Advisor or University.