Reading hidden structure in heterogeneous media through flow and transport dynamics

The subsurface is heterogeneous, and flow does not use it evenly: it concentrates along preferential paths across fractured porous media. Solutes and heat are carried by that flow through complex networks of rough fractures that we cannot observe directly. How can we make reliable predictions in such systems, knowing so little about them?

Understanding how this happens across scales — from the pore to the reservoir — and grasping how those scales are linked is essential for geothermal energy, CO₂ sequestration, hydrogen storage, water supply, the exploitation of subsurface resources and environmental protection.

My work turns on four questions: how to build parsimonious upscaled models that condense the information contained at one scale and carry it to a larger one; how to reconstruct the medium from the signal we measure; how complex fluids behave in strongly heterogeneous environments; and what happens once flow leaves the Darcian regime. This is the ground covered by GEONEAT, my current Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship.

Research lines and projects →