Dr. Rita Esuru Okoroafor is an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on using oil and gas skills and techniques to solve challenges related to low-carbon energy technologies. Before embarking on her Ph.D., Dr. Okoroafor was a Principal Reservoir Engineer with SLB, an organization she worked with for 13 years, supporting different product lines and locations. Dr. Okoroafor has authored several technical papers and patents in the fields of petrophysics, reservoir engineering, production engineering, geothermal energy, and underground geological storage of carbon dioxide and hydrogen. 

Dr. Okoroafor was a Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Distinguished Lecturer (2023-2024), a Stanford University Centennial Teaching Award Recipient (2019), an SLB NExT Certified Training Instructor, and a former part-time lecturer at the University of Lagos, Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering.

Her research areas include geothermal reservoir engineering, carbon dioxide storage and utilization, geologic storage and generation of hydrogen, with her research extending to economic analyses and life cycle assessments. Outside of work, she is an avid fiction writer and currently is an author of two novels.