Dear InterPore colleagues,

We’re all shocked by the horrific earthquake in Turkey and Syria. The level of destruction is beyond anyone’s comprehension. It reminded me that I worked with a colleague who studied slip planes, so the plane along which the two tectonic plates slide. We were surprised to find nanoparticles right at the slip plane. Tiny crystallites potentially playing a role in these massive events!

Today’s Newsletter features the usual broad range of news items. Science, jobs, updates on InterPore2023, Chapter news, good-to-knows about the InterPore organization. One particular highlight for today are the three award winners!

All the best,

Matthijs de Winter
Editor-in-Chief
InterPore News

Registration for InterPore2023 is now open!

Register by 17 March for an early-bird discount.

Minisymposia

Conference Grant Program – Apply now!

We are pleased to announce that the InterPore Foundation for Porous Media Science and Technology (InterPore Foundation) would once again like to offer a number of conference grants to scientists from academic institutions from countries with lower- or middle-income economies, as defined by the World Bank, and to graduate students.

In addition to paying the conference registration fees, the InterPore Foundation will provide up to €500 per recipient to go towards travel costs. Please send the full application package to Karolin.Weber@InterPore.org no later than Monday, 28 February. For more information on the Conference Grant Program, please refer to InterPore2023 (22-25 May 2023): Conference Grant Program · InterPore Event Management (Indico)

Diversity, Equality, and Inclusiveness Workshop

Why must diversity, equality, and inclusiveness be central to all scientific endeavors?

Join Chris Jackson at the Diversity, Equality, and Inclusiveness Lecture & Workshop at InterPore2023 to find out!

Did you know….Edinburgh?

InterPore2023 will be in Edinburgh. Edinburgh has a lot of things to offer with respect to science, science history and porous media. This week: the New Lanark and the Falls of Clyde.

Situated 30 miles south-west of Edinburgh, New Lanard is one of Scotland’s 6 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Founded in 1785 with a focus on education and welfare of the mill workers, New Lanark became a model for industrial communities that was to spread across the world in the 19th and 20th centuries. The heart of New Lanark is a living and working village which welcome visitors from all over the world. Learn and explore the 18th century cotton-spinning village with historical buildings including the first workplace nursery school in the world. New Lanark is also the gateway to the majestic Falls of Clyde where you will find a woodland walk through breathtaking scenery, stunning waterfalls and the Clyde Walkway. Look out for wildlife, and you may catch a glimpse of kingfishers, otters, deer and maybe walk in the footsteps of William Wallace himself.

Platinum Sponsor for InterPore2023

Time Capsule

In this InterPore Time Capsule, Professor Larry Lake of University of Texas Austin is interviewed by Professor David DiCarlo also of University of Texas Austin. A world-famous expert in reservoir engineering, geochemistry, fluid flow in porous media and enhanced oil recovery, Professor Lake is the Shahid and Sharon Ullah Endowed Chair in petroleum engineering. To watch the video, please go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhaBWfGsqfk.

National Chapter Meetings

RACMI 2023 Conference

Join the InterPore Mexico Chapter for its next hybrid meeting on 2-3 March, in the city of Queretaro. Thematic sessions will include Artificial Porous Systems, Soils and Aquifers, Porous Systems in Energy Resources, Environmental Systems, Geothermal Systems, and Other Applications.

See here for more information about RACMI-2023 (the Annual Meeting of the Mexico Chapter of InterPore) InterPore members who wish to submit an abstract may still do so until 9 February to cmi.redes@gmail.com.

German Chapter Meeting

The next meeting of the German Chapter of InterPore will take place on 13-14 September 2023 at the KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and will be organized at the Mathematical Institute for Machine Learning and Data Science (MIDS) by the Chair of Geomatics and Geomathematics.

The goal of the German Chapter is to bring together people working on porous media. The conference provides a national forum for interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration of experts from numerous German research institutions, universities, and industry. The topics of the conference therefore deal with all issues of porous media research, from experiment to theory and from science to industrial applications.

More information on registration and program will be announced soon. We are looking forward to your participation and your visit in Ingolstadt.

Congratulations to our award recipients!

InterPore Award for Porous Media Research Dr. Pejman Tahmasebi Colorado School of Mines Dr. Pejman Tahmasebi is an extraordinarily brilliant researcher with a remarkable research record, in terms of originality, productivity and impact. He has made outstanding contributions to the science of fluid flow and transport in porous media in multiphysics environments and has been at the forefront of several other fields such as machine learning and large-scale subsurface systems. Dr. Tahmasebi has targeted very fundamental problems in porous media and geo-materials by introducing new concepts in his research such that most of them are now considered benchmarks for the research conducted afterward. InterPore and InterPore Foundation congratulate Dr. Tahmasebi on this honor and wish him continued success.

Rien van Genuchten Early-Career Award of Porous Media for a Green World Prof. Junjie Zhong China University of Petroleum Prof. Zhong’s excellent research contributions in the nanoscale fluid experimentation bring insight into the fundamental fluid phase and transport mechanisms in nanoporous media, with important applications in greening subsurface fuel & energy mining. He has developed an optically enhanced silicon nanofludic device that allows direct visualization of fluid behaviors down to sub-10 nm scale. This method is truly a breakthrough in the field of experimental fluid dynamics, providing unprecedented opportunities in validating theoretical models of the fluid transport in nanoporous media. InterPore and InterPore Foundation congratulate Prof. Zhong on this honor and wish him continued success.

InterPore PoreLab Award for Young Researchers Pranay Shrestha University of Toronto Mr. Shrestha is an emerging scientist in the field of transport in porous media with applications to electrochemical energy devices. He is using operando and simultaneous X-ray and neutron computed tomography to elucidate a first-of-its-kind understanding of two-phase transport in porous materials in hydrogen fuel cells and water electrolyzers. He has a passion for doing research to help the lives of others, being one of the pioneering members of the Victoria Hand Project, where he employed additive manufacturing of affordable prosthetic arms for third world countries. He will undoubtably continue to make an impact through his research to transform the lives of people in need. InterPore and InterPore Foundation congratulate Mr. Shrestha on this honor and wish him continued success.

National Science Foundation CAREER Award

‌Congratulations to Bo Guo, the chair of the Membership Committee of InterPore, on receiving the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. Bo is an Assistant Professor of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona. The CAREER project will study microscale processes controlling field-scale transport of surface-active contaminants, such as PFAS and colloids, in soil and groundwater. The CAREER Award is the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

The impact of xylem geometry on olive cultivar resistance to Xylella fastidiosa: An image-based study

Nancy C. Walker, Steven M. White, Dan McKay Fletcher, Siul A. Ruiz, Kathryn E. Rankin, Angelo De Stradis, Maria Saponari, Katherine A. Williams, Chiara Petroselli, Tiina Roose

Xylella fastidiosa, a pathogen colonising plant vasculature, is responsible for a disease devastating Italian olive trees. A strategy proposed to mitigate losses is to re-plant susceptible cultivars with resistant ones. However, resistance mechanisms are poorly understood and only two resistant olive cultivars are identified. X-Ray Computed Tomography measurements of susceptible (Ogliarola, Koroneiki) and resistant (Leccino, FS17) olive stems suggest xylem vessel diameters likely support the resistance of Leccino, but not FS17. Furthermore, relating the measurements to physical phenomena suggests that under stress conditions, flow rates in susceptible cultivars could become comparable to resistant ones, imposing stress on remaining vessels.

Plant Pathology
Corresponding Author: Tiina Roose

InterPore Members can promote their publications to the community via the InterPore In Journals Section of the Newsletter. If you wish to do so, please submit your publication highlight to newsletter@InterPore.org. Clearly indicate which of the authors is an InterPore member (or the institute with an Institutional Membership). Note that we will not review the entries nor does InterPore endorse the published work. Furthermore, we publish on a “submitted first, published first” basis. The highlighted publication should be no older than 6 months (available online).

The highlight should be short (max 100 words) and contain an illustration. Please note that we offer this opportunity exclusively to InterPore members. If you would like to become a member, please have a look here.

• PhD position in Field, laboratory and modelling constraints on fluid transport in fractured mudrocks with a focus on chemical self-healing, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland
• Two PhD positions in Water and Solute Fluxes and their Structural Controls at Margins of Floodplain Aquifers, Department of Geosciences, Universität Tubingen, Germany
• PhD position in 3D reconstruction of porous material based on 2D images using conditional generative adversarial neural networks (CGANs), University of Leeds, UK
• PhD Research Fellow in Experimental Porous Media Physics, PoreLab, University of Oslo, Norway

If you have a job opening in your institute and would like to promote it internationally, please send the description and weblink or PDF to newsletter@interpore.org, and we’ll be happy to add it to the list.