Indian Institute of Petroleum and Energy signs MoU with Houston University

Visakhapatnam: University of Houston (UOH), USA and Indian Institute of Petroleum and Energy (IIPE), Visakhapatnam, signed an Academic MoU at University of Houston.

The MoU was signed by Director of IIPE Prof VSRK Prasad and Prof S Neogi, SPOC, IIT-Kharagpur on behalf of IIPE and the Provost and Senior Vice-President for academic affairs Dr Paula M Short, Dr Jaime Ortiz, Vice-President, Global Strategies and Studies and Dr Josesph W Tedesco, Dean of College of Engineering on behalf of the University of Houston.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof VSRK Prasad said the MoU would help both the institutes to exchange their knowledge and share the platform for research and upgradation of skills. The MoU would provide an opportunity to have faculty exchange programmes, student exchange programmes and internships for the students, apart from research collaboration, Prasad said.

Prof Prasad also highlighted that as IIPE was run by Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and as all the CEOs of Petroleum Industry are involved in the Board, the IIPE makes itself best example of industry-academy interaction. The industrial problems raised by various industries can be taken up for resolving through research efforts of the faculty, Prasad added.

On the occasion, Provost and Senior Vice-President for academic affairs of UOH Dr Paula expressed happiness over the signing the MoU with an emerging institute of future and assured the fullest cooperation in sharing the ideas particularly with reference to the development of academic activities and research. He offered to spare the services of certain senior faculty members to be on the external expert advisory committee.  

Dr Phanindra Kondapi, who had been coordinating the programme being the Director of Subsea Engineering in the University of Houston, several dignitaries of the institute including Dr Suresh Khatore, Associate Dean for Graduate programmes and Dr Mike Harold, Chair, Chemical Engineering and Dr Mohamed Soliman, Chair Petroleum Engineering and Dr Ramanan Krishna Murthy of UH Energy were present.