About the Digital Porous Media Portal

Our Mission and Overview

Launched in 2015, the Digital Porous Media Portal (DPM) serves as a vital open repository for the geosciences and engineering communities focused on porous materials. Our mission is multi-faceted:

  • Organize and Preserve: We provide a robust platform to securely store, organize, and preserve valuable imaged datasets and related experimental measurements of porous materials, primarily focusing on subsurface media like rocks and soil.
  • Connect and Analyze: We strive to link these datasets with simulation, analysis, and visualization tools, thereby enhancing their scientific utility and enabling deeper insights.
  • Educate and Collaborate: We are committed to supporting the research community by offering educational resources, organizing workshops and challenges, and fostering collaboration through data sharing.

Understanding the complex processes of flow, transport, and deformation within porous media is fundamental to addressing critical challenges in environmental science, civil engineering, petroleum engineering, and basic geology. The DPM aims to accelerate research and education in these important fields by providing access to high-quality data.

Scope and Content Policy

The Digital Porous Media Portal is specifically designed to host datasets pertinent to the study of porous materials. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • 2D and 3D images (e.g., from X-ray CT, micro-CT, FIB-SEM, SEM)
  • Associated experimental data (e.g., core analysis, petrophysical measurements)
  • Simulation inputs and results derived from these materials.

We require that users contributing data ensure their submissions are scientifically relevant, clearly described, well-organized, and reusable. High-quality metadata is essential for making datasets discoverable, understandable, and valuable to the broader community. Datasets submitted without sufficient descriptive metadata, proper attribution, or in formats currently unsupported by the portal may require revision before public release. For detailed guidelines, please consult our How to Upload Data guide and the official User Agreement, which outlines curation standards and the publication process.

Our Team

The portal is managed by Dr. Masa Prodanovic, Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, and uses computing resources from the University of Texas System Research Cyberinfrastructure and the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Current Team as of May 2025

Data Curation, Software, Digital Marketing

Dr. Maria Esteva, Cinar Turhan, Dr. Bernard Chang, Dr. Masa Prodanovic

Project Implementation

John Gentle, Shayan Khan, Vera Belcher, Tracy Brown

Past Team Members:

Hasan Khan, Javier Estrada Santos, Anuradha Radhakrishnan, Ankita Singh, Keith Strmiska, Andrew Magill, Christopher Landry, Linli Ding, Mary Pettengil, Matthew Hanlon, Ashvini Venkatesh, Aditi Ranganath, Prateel Agarwal, Gaurav Nanda.

Connections and Community Engagement

DPM is proud to be an active participant in the broader research data ecosystem:

  • An affiliated dataset within EarthCube, enhancing access to geoscience data.
  • A member of the EarthCube Council of Data Facilities.
  • Registered in the Registry of Research Data Repositories (re3data.org).
  • Recognized as a recommended data repository by the Geosciences Data Journal.

News Highlights

Keep up with DPM developments and recognition:

Funding and Sustainability

The Digital Porous Media Portal is currently supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF GEO OSE 2324786).

Initial development was made possible through generous funding from NSF EAR CAREER Grant 1255622 and NSF EarthCube Grant 1541008 (2015-2018). Additional support has been provided through the industry affiliate program led by Dr. Prodanovic.

To ensure the long-term viability and continued service to the community, the DPM transitioned to a community-supported funding model in September 2021. Details regarding membership options and data storage fees can be found in the User Agreement.

We sincerely thank all funding agencies, institutional partners, and community supporters who make the Digital Porous Media Portal possible.

Get Involved

  • Provide Feedback: Your input is valuable! Share your thoughts and suggestions via our feedback mechanism (Placeholder for actual link) (anonymous submission is available).
  • Contribute Data: Enhance the portal's collection by sharing your relevant research datasets. See the upload guide.
  • Use Portal Resources: Explore published datasets and leverage our tools for your research and educational activities. Please remember to properly cite the portal and the specific datasets you utilize.

Resources and Publications

Discover more about the portal's impact and capabilities through our publications, presentations, and educational materials: