Dr. Olatunde Mosobalaje
Covenant University
Spring 2025
Dr. Olatunde Olu Mosobalaje is a Senior Faculty member in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Covenant University, Ota. A Spring 2025 MIT-ETT Fellow, he is pioneering the intersection of Petroleum Data Analytics and traditional Reservoir Engineering. His mission is to transition the Nigerian oil and gas curriculum from “Analog to Digital,” ensuring graduates are proficient in handling Big Data, which is becoming the new gold standard in the energy sector. His research focuses on Reservoir Characterization and Production Forecasting. He specializes in improving “Decline Curve Analysis” (DCA) using statistical models and machine learning algorithms to better predict the lifespan of oil wells. He is also the founder of the Petroleum Data Analytics Special Interest Group (PDA-SIG) at Covenant University, a student-led initiative that explores the use of Python and R for solving complex subsurface problems. Dr. Mosobalaje holds a Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering from Covenant University (2019) and an M.Sc. from the African University of Science and Technology (AUST), Abuja. He is a recipient of the “Best Teacher Award” in his department and is deeply invested in Engineering Education Research. He recently initiated a project to “unbox” reservoir simulation, moving students away from “black box” commercial software to understanding the fundamental code and physics behind fluid flow in porous media. As a recent MIT-ETT fellow, he is currently developing a new “Computational Petroleum Engineering” framework that integrates Artificial Intelligence into the standard undergraduate syllabus, a move designed to future-proof Nigerian engineers against the global energy transition.
