Susan L. Brantley

Susan L. Brantley, Atherton Professor of Geosciences and Evan Pugh University Professor Emerita at the Pennsylvania State University, is recognized for her pioneering geochemical research achievements and for her role in leading a novel initiative in science of the critical zone -- the part of the Earth that extends from the tree canopy to groundwater. Her fundamental research has had an enormous impact in environmental geoscience. She has made groundbreaking advances in quantifying rock-water-biological agent interactions while championing the need to study the societally-important ‘skin’ of the Earth as one entity instead of breaking it down into its individual parts. She led the charge to establish this new field of research to treat the critical zone for the first time as a co-evolving entity driven by physical, chemical, and biological processes that sustain life. Her research has had implications for decision makers studying the impacts of hydraulic fracturing and shale gas development on water quality and for geologists assessing the impacts of biotic processes on element cycling through soils and landscapes over deep time.