"Watching the old pump lift water from an artesian well sparked my interest in how machinery influences the lives of people."

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Demosthenis Pafitis

Born in Norfolk, England, 1967.

Graduated from Great Yarmouth Grammar School, 1985

Norfolk, England.

Bachelor's degree in Engineering, 1988

Queen Mary College, University of London, England.

Doctorate Degree in Materials Science, 1991, Cambridge University,

Materials Science Department.

I was born in Norfolk, England in 1967, and spent a large part of my youth in an area of natural beauty known as the Norfolk Broads. As a young boy I spent summers with my family on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, helping my grandfather irrigate the citrus trees on the family farm. Watching the old pump lift water from an artesian well sparked my interest in how machinery influences the lives of people. I was fascinated by that simple device as it gurgled and spluttered and choked and sent cool water around the channels we had cut at the foot of the trees.

I went to an incredible school in England where science and technology were presented with so much enthusiasm, it was impossible not to be interested. At the age of 15, during lunch-breaks, some friends and I built a twin-engine hovercraft capable of carrying one person across land or water at speeds up to 30mph. It was such a sense of achievement to take a drawing and some ideas and turn it into something that could be so much fun. I guess that's when I knew I was going to be an engineer.

From school I went to the University of London. I enjoyed mathematics, physics and chemistry at school and decided that a course in Materials science and engineering would teach me most about what I was interested in; how to make things work and what to make them from. I continued my education by going to Cambridge University where I completed a Ph.D. I studied how the environment can influence the performance of a particular class of materials.

In 1991 I joined Schlumberger Cambridge Research . I spent about 4.5 years working on a number of projects relating to the physics, engineering and materials science of well completion. In 1996 I moved to the Schlumberger product development center in Sugar Land, Texas, USA. I'm the section manager for power systems and work on projects that involve developing more efficient ways to transform hydraulic power into mechanical power. Being an engineer has turned out better than I had imagined when I was 15. I don't just get to spend my lunch-break inventing things, I get paid to use the rest of the day to do it too.