CURIOSOIL

After a background in Geology, I specialised in Soil Science during a master’s degree at the University of Nancy (Lorraine, France). I did my postgraduate internship at Wageningen Agricultural University (Erasmus programme, Netherlands) where I worked on Podzols’ organic matter. I then completed a PhD at the Nancy Biological Pedology Center on Andosolization in the Vosges Mountains (France) and defended my doctorate in 1998 at the University of Nancy. After a temporary teaching and research position at the University of Strasbourg’s Centre for Surface Geochemistry, I was recruited as a lecturer at the University of Metz in 2000 (University of Lorraine since 2012).

Working in the Life and Earth Sciences department in Metz, I teach earth sciences and soil sciences at bachelor’s and master’s level. In soil sciences, I cover a wide range of topics: soil basics (constituents, properties, etc.), pedogenesis and major soil types (functioning, distribution, etc.), soil services and threats, soil anthropization, etc.

My research at the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Continental Environments (LIEC UMR 7360 CNRS) focuses on the functioning of urban or contaminated soils, and on the role of soil in the distribution of certain organisms, from forest stands… to ticks.

Member of the French Soil Science Society (Association Française pour l’Étude du Sol, AFES) since 1994, I was elected to the Board of Directors from 2019 to 2022, and Vice President in charge of teaching from 2020 to 2022. After the end of this mandate, I continued my involvement in this association and I’m now referent for the PromoSolsEduc group, which lists and promotes educational resources on soil. Supported by AFES, I joined the Curiosoil Community of Practice in December 2024 and am now CoP leader for France.