Iraj Ershaghi, is the Omar B. Milligan Professor and Director of the Petroleum Engineering Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA. He is also serving as the Director of the West Coast Petroleum Technology Transfer Council and as the Executive Director of the Center for Smart Oilfield Technologies at USC. He graduated from University of Tehran with a BS degree in Petroleum Engineering. He completed his graduate studies at USC with an MS and PhD in petroleum engineering in 1968 and 1972 respectively. He worked for SIRIP, Signal Oil and Gas Company and California State Lands Commission before joining the faculty at USC. As a Registered Petroleum Engineer, he has also served as a consultant to Texaco, Aera, TRW, Tenneco, Unocal, Venoco, McFarland Energy, National Bureau of Standards, Pall Well Technology, Tidelands Oil Production Company, Santa Fe Energy, Southern California Gas Company, Pacific Offshore Operators, US Department of Interior, Minerals Management Service and the US Department of Justice. Internationally he has served as a consultant to Petrovietnam and Indonesia Pertamina.

He is the recipient of Society of Petroleum Engineers Distinguished Faculty Award in 1983, Distinguished Member Award in 1996, North American Western Region Distinguished Service Award in 2005 and USC School of Engineering, Distinguished Service Award in 1996. He is a Member New York Academy of Sciences, 2000, a Fellow of the Institute for Advancement of Engineering, 2002, a recipient of Outstanding Educator Award, American Association for Advancement of Engineering in 2003 and a recipient of Outstanding Educator Award, Orange County Council of Engineers and Scientists in 2003. His areas of research interest are formation evaluation, naturally fractured reservoirs and improved recovery processes.