Tonya Ross Profile

Biography

Tonya Ross is currently an R&D geoscience engineer at Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia). Tonya's professional experience includes facilities engineering in the oil and gas industry and Environmental, Health, and Safety (ES&H) at Sandia. As a geoscience engineer, Tonya models two-dimensional finite element meshes to support underground oil storage caverns built in salt domes for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Before arriving at Sandia, Tonya worked in the oil and gas field as a facilities engineer for ConocoPhillips in Houston, Texas. Tonya's work at ConocoPhillips explored field development planning, designing, and optimizing surface facilities and piping systems, where her expertise in management and technical support enabled her to reduce project costs. As a facilities engineer, Tonya performed process simulations and calculations to troubleshoot and optimize performance for existing oil and gas facilities, reservoir modeling, economic evaluation, project management, and implementation. Another notable success during her time at ConocoPhillips was developing a functional tool that calculated flood loads on facility equipment.

Tonya was raised in Guyana, South America, before moving to Maryland, the USA, with her family. Tonya obtained an Associate of Science degree in General Engineering from Prince George's Community College (PGCC). She then transferred to New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NMT) in Socorro, New Mexico, where she obtained her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering. Tonya is pursuing her Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering, focusing on improved sweep efficiency in polymer flooding and its geomechanical impact. Tonya is also working on an Engineering Management Master's in conjunction with her Ph.D.