Dr. Andre Da Costa has over 31 years of experience in the Chemical and Oil and Gas industries. Andre gained significant experience in Process Safety since the early 90s and facilitated or oversaw numerous process hazard analysis studies and quantitative risk assessments. He joined Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) in April 2013 to lead the development of the Process Safety function in Gas Operations. Prior to this position, Andre was a Chemical Engineering Manager with Corning Incorporated in Upstate NY to re-build the Chemical Engineering function (including Process Safety) across the corporation globally. Andre held different positions at Chevron (Richmond/Bakersfield, CA & Houston, TX), including Engineering Manager for a North American exploration and production Business Unit. Prior to Chevron, Andre held the role of Process Development Manager at Membrane Technology and Research in the San Francisco Bay Area where he led research and development of separation processes for natural gas, refining, and petrochemicals. Andre also worked for Fluor Corporation on a variety of oil and gas and mineral processing capital projects for Fortune 500 companies in Australia, Europe and United States.
Andre earned an M.Sc. degree in Chemical Engineering from the DI Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology in Russia, and a Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He holds 14 US patents and 30 journal papers or presentations at scientific conferences. He is a Fellow of AIChE, IChemE and Engineers Australia. Andre served on the AIChE Board of Directors as Treasurer and held more than 20 leadership positions, including Meeting Program Co-Chair for the 2006 Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Andre was also a member of the Managing Board of CCPS and currently represents PG&E in the CCPS Technical Steering Committee. Furthermore, he is a founding member and chair of the AGA Process Safety Sub-committee. He is fluent in 5 languages.