Lab Overview
The Subsurface Hydrophysics Group is focused on gaining a fundamental mechanistic understanding of fluid, solute, and colloid transport processes in heterogeneous porous and fractured media. The image above highlights the complexity of the pore space (black regions) that fluids navigate as they flow through the subsurface. Our approach often leverages in situ imaging—such as X-ray computed tomography, positron emission tomography, or optical imaging—combined with analytical, numerical, and data science methods to describe transport processes in these complex geologic systems across time and length scales. Due to the fundamental nature of this approach, and the ubiquity of fluid transport in porous media, this work has important applications across a range of environmental and geological processes including contaminant migration in the vadose zone, heat recovery in geothermal energy systems, bacteria transport in the subsurface, and carbon dioxide transport and immobilization in geologic carbon storage projects.
We are currently recruiting graduate students for Fall 2023 who are interested in doing research on bacteria transport in porous media or PFAS fate and transport in the vadose zone.
Recent Papers
Three-Dimensional Permeability Inversion Using Convolutional Neural Networks and Positron Emission Tomography
Published open access in Water Resources Research (Data and analysis codes)
Preferential Solute Transport in Low Permeability Zones During Spontaneous Imbibition in Heterogeneous Porous Media
Published in the January 2022 issue of Water Resources Research (Preprint, Data and analysis codes)
Recent News
August 2022:
- Visiting undergraduate student Liam Warren from Beloit College finished his Water@UW Summer Scholars project titled ‘Colloid-facilitated Heavy Metal Contaminant Transport – Role of Sorption and Colloid Composition‘.
July 2022:
- Vy Le successfully completed and defended her MS thesis titled ‘Measurement of Bacterial Colloid Attachment and Unraveling the Effects of Heterogeneity and Salinity on Subsurface Bacteria Transport Using Positron Emission Tomography’. She will be continuing on for her PhD in the group starting this fall.
May 2022:
- Our work was featured in a recent news article by the Unversity of Wisconsin Water Resources Institute.
- Undergraduate Sophia Thompson was awarded a highly prestigious Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship.
April 2022:
- Our collaborative research on PFAS contamination in Rhinelander WI was featured on the local news in northern WI.
Recent Conferences and Presentations
Frontiers in Hydrology 2022: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Will Gnesda presented his recent work focused on quantifying multiscale PFAS transport in the vadose zone.
Emerging Contaminants in the Environment 2022: University of Illinois
Will Gnesda presented his recent lab and field work results focused on quantifying multiscale PFAS transport in the vadose zone.
AGU Fall Meeting, December 2021: New Orleans
Group members presented work on bacteria transport in porous media, spontaneous imbibition, permeability inversion using deep learning methods, and DEI work associated with UW-Madison URGE pods.
AGU Fall Meeting, December 2019: San Francisco
Presented: Pore network model predictions of Darcy-scale multiphase flow heterogeneity validated with high resolution experimental observations
Trondheim CCS Conference, June 2019: Trondheim, Norway
Presented: In Situ Quantification of Capillary Pressure During Spontaneous Imbibition in Carbon Storage Reservoirs
Interpore 11th Annual Meeting, May 2019: Valencia, Spain
Presented: Positron Emission Tomography in Water Resources and Subsurface Energy Resources Engineering Research
