This series started as a bilateral workshop, supported by CONACYT (Mexico) and NSERC (Canada) to build links between researchers in the two countries in the area of “Physics of Porous Media”. The first workshop was organized by CICESE and University of Alberta at Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico on November 10-12, 1995 with the active support of Union Geofísica Mexicana. This workshop was a tremendous success principally because of its multidisciplinary character. The diversity of the research topics and yet the similarity of the basic physics helped to promote a dynamic dialog. The follow-up workshop, which was held at Canmore, Alberta, Canada, May 10-12, 1997, was expanded to include US participants. The third Workshop took place on October 22-24, 1999 at Puerto Vallarta, México, with the assistance of the Purdue University. At this workshop the series was formally renamed "North American Workshop" to be held as a biennial event at Puerto Vallarta under the umbrella of the Union Geofisica Mexicana.
Since then, CICESE, University of Alberta, Purdue University and the University of Mississippi have organized meetings in Puerto Vallarta in 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007. This biennial workshop has proven to be a vehicle to promote the frontier topics of research in Applications of the Physics of Porous Media. With the assistance of CICESE, University of California at San Diego, University of Waterloo, and Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, the eighth workshop of the series will take place in Ensenada, Mexico, on October 9-12, 2009.