Benjamin Kirkland is currently the petroleum systems specialist for the North America offices of CNOOC International. He began his career in 2012 with six years at Nexen Energy and subsequently worked with Fieldwood Energy before joining CNOOC. He has performed petroleum systems analyses extensively in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico and for exploration and new ventures evaluations in nearly every active offshore basin in North and South America. Some of his key research interests include pore pressure modeling and prediction, fluid properties of mixed-hydrocarbon systems, source rock depositional environments, and novel machine learning subsurface and geochemical applications. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in geology from the University of Kentucky and a Master of Science degree in geology from the University of New Orleans.