Professor and Undergraduate Chair, Dept. of Earth & Environmental Science
Professor Alain Plante joined the Department of Earth & Environmental Science at Penn in 2007. He currently serves as Undergraduate Chair in the department and as the Faculty Director of the University Scholars program at the University’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF). Professor Plante is a soil scientist by training and studies organic matter cycling and storage in soils. His research uses biological, chemical and physical methods to characterize soil organic matter with the goal of predicting its behavior in the global carbon cycle. Prof. Plante has worked at study sites in Mongolia, Puerto Rico, New Zealand, west Africa and across the US and Europe. He teaches courses in introductory environmental science, soil science, biogeochemistry, environmental sustainability and the Anthropocene, and has led two Penn Global Seminar courses on environmental sustainability in Iceland. Professor Plante holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering and a Master of Science in Soil Science from the University of Guelph (Canada), and a PhD in Soil Science from the University of Alberta (Canada).
