Soils and much more
Ruben Kretzschmar of ETH Zurich becomes an ES&T associate editor.
The posters that hang on the walls of the soil chemistry group at ETH Zurich hint at the breadth of interests of the researchers there—the data on plants that take up and fractionate iron isotopes, speciation of heavy metals in soils, fate of arsenic in irrigation waters in Bangladesh, and more. The leader of this diverse group, Ruben Kretzschmar, brings his wide-ranging interests to ES&T as one of its new associate editors.
Stephan Kraemer, who worked under Kretzschmar during his first years at ETH Zurich, says that Kretzschmar has "a wonderful intuition" for new methods and a willingness to apply them. "This creative open-mindedness, his fairness and generosity towards colleagues, collaborators, and students, as well as his almost encyclopedic knowledge of soils and environmental chemistry," make him well qualified to serve as an editor of ES&T, Kraemer says. Kretzschmar became an associate editor of ES&T at the beginning of September. He will help edit research articles for a special focus group of papers in ES&T on the use of stable isotopes to measure microbial reactions in the environment, which will be published next spring.
Kretzschmar says he started out being interested in environmental problems and food production in developing countries. But in 1983 in Germany, environmental programs were scarce. Geology, agriculture, and forestry were the main paths to such research. "Today, a lot of environmental problems are rooted in land use," Kretzschmar says, which feeds into his curiosity about the interface between soil science, the environment, and how humans use natural resources for primary production (such as agriculture and forestry).
Kretzschmar embarked on his undergraduate work at the Georg-August University of Göttingen (Germany) as an agricultural sciences major. He eventually specialized in soil sciences and plant nutrition and studied at the University of Hohenheim (Germany) with Horst Marschner, the well-known plant mineral nutritionist. Kretzschmar examined rhizosphere chemistry and aluminum toxicity to plants in the acidic soils of Niger for his master's research, focusing on soil fertility problems. He followed that interest to North Carolina State University, where his work with Wayne Robarge, a soil chemist, and Sterling Weed, a soil mineralogist, earned him a Ph.D. In 1993, Kretzschmar accepted a 6-year research associate position at ETH Zurich, where he was elected a tenured professor in 1999.
Kretzschmar's group is now as diverse as he is—it includes 15 doctoral and postdoctoral researchers studying various aspects of the biogeochemistry of trace elements in soils and sediments. For the past decade or longer, Kretzschmar says, the disciplines within the soil sciences have overlapped, bringing together physics, chemistry, mineralogy, and biology.
Those who have worked with Kretzschmar admire his scientific knowledge as well as his leadership skills. "Ruben has a very direct style" and is "an effective group leader," both scientifically and interpersonally, says Jon Chorover of the University of Arizona, who just spent a 6-month sabbatical conducting research alongside Kretzschmar at ETH Zurich.
"I had a great time personally and professionally working with Ruben," says Kraemer, who is now chair of geochemistry at the University of Vienna. "He is quick to recognize and to tackle emerging research fields within soil and environmental chemistry."
