The National Academy of Engineering and the Society of Petroleum Engineering

Abstract The National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the three academies that comprise the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) [NAE, 2025], serves as an important advisory body to the U.S. federal government on matters involving engineering and technology. Established under the same 1863 congressional charter that created the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the NAE brings together experts from academia, industry, government, and the nonprofit sector to provide consensus-based guidance on complex national challenges. This paper provides an overview of the NAE's organizational structure, membership selection process, and study methodologies, with a focus on its contributions to the energy domain. Particular attention is given to areas such as oil and gas, unconventional hydrocarbons, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and environmental safety. Numerous members of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) have been elected to the NAE, underscoring the importance of petroleum engineering in national science and engineering leadership. A dozen past Presidents of SPE are NAE members, as are scores of leading researchers and business leaders. While election to the NAE is widely recognized as a prestigious career milestone, the Academy's core function remains service-oriented—conducting studies and offering independent, expert advice to policymakers. The study process within NASEM is reviewed here, including notable examples such as safety recommendations following the Deepwater Horizon disaster [Arscott and Moreau, 2020], technical guidance on the Hubble Space Telescope repair [NRC,2005], formulation of fuel economy standards [NRC, 2002], and ongoing work on abandoned and orphaned wells [NASEM, 2025a]. The NAE's commitment to diversity across institutional sectors—academia, industry, government, and nonprofit (GNP) organizations—is paired with an emphasis on leadership, innovation, and engineering's broader societal impact [Meehan, 2015a], [Miller, 2019]. The paper also includes the author's reflections on participation in NAE initiatives and discusses how petroleum engineers can contribute more actively to the NAE's mission, including through efforts such as the Department of the Interior-sponsored study on orphaned and idled wells.