Jim Brill is currently a Professor Emeritus and Research Professor of Petroleum Engineering at The University of Tulsa. He joined the TU Petroleum Engineering faculty in 1966 and taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in the area of petroleum production engineering design until his retirement at the end of 2000. He held the Floyd M. Stevenson Endowed Presidential Chair in Petroleum Engineering at TU from 1985 until his retirement. Jim formed TUFFP in 1973 and served as the Executive Director until May 2001.   He also served as Director for a research consortium called the Tulsa University Paraffin Deposition Projects (TUPDP) that was initiated in June 2000. He relinquished his duties as Director of these two research consortia in May 2001 when his successor, Dr. Cem Sarica, arrived at TU.

Jim holds a BS degree from the University of Minnesota, a Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and is a registered Professional Engineer in Oklahoma. He has served as a consultant to over 35 international oil and gas companies on a variety of multiphase flow projects and has taught over 70 short courses on multiphase flow in pipes in 15 different countries. He has also published nearly 200 technical papers and research reports, with most appearing in SPE, ASME and AIChE Journals and the International Journal of Multiphase Flow.   He is coauthor of the SPE Monograph on "Multiphase Flow in Wells".

Jim has also been actively involved in ABET, SPE and ASME activities. He served as an SPE representative to the ABET Engineering Accreditation Commission from 1989-1994 and as the SPE Representative to the ABET Board of Directors from 1994-2000. In 1994 he received SPE’s Production Engineering Award and the Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty, and also received the 1997 SPE John Franklin Carll Award and recognition as an SPE Distinguished Member. He served as Editor of the ASME Journal of Energy Resources Technology from 1996 – 2000 and was an Associate Technical Editor for the JERT from 1983-1989. He was the Petroleum Production Technology Symposium Chair for the ASME Energy Technology Conference and Exhibition (ETCE) in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 and was Chair of the ASME Petroleum Division’s Production Committee in 1998, 1999 and 2000. He was elected an ASME Fellow in 2000. Jim was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1997.