Research Expertise and Interest

biogeochemistry, iron reduction, metals and contaminants, soil aggregates, selenium kinetics of organic matter degradation, nitrate reduction, soil and environmental biogeophysics, biogeochemical cycles, fate and transport of nutrients, sulfate reduction, wetland soils, littoral sediments, spatial variation in biogeochemical processes

Research Description

The research in Pallud Lab focuses on the analysis and prediction of the fate and transport of chemical species that are of importance to the functioning, quality and remediation of soils, surface sediments and water. More specifically, their research aims at a mechanistic understanding and quantitative characterization of biological processes and their impact on the mobility, bioavailability and distribution of nutrients, metals and contaminants. As a consequence, their research is strongly multidisciplinary, standing at the interface between soil microbiology, soil geochemistry and soil physics and explores the coupled geochemical, biological and transport processes in soils, surface sediments and within watersheds. Their approach combines (i) field measurements, (ii) laboratory experiments that focus on the mechanisms, kinetics and equilibrium states of individual biogeochemical processes, (iii) reactive transport modeling, and (iv) elemental budget analysis at the field scale that ultimately allows predicting the response of a natural system to changing conditions.