Professor Christopher Carcaillet 

Christopher Carcaillet works on plant communities and ecosystems, the ecological function of climate and social processes on their organisation in space and time. His main research focuses on the chrono-ecology of fire in relation to climate change and the dynamics of plant diversity in boreal, mountain, Mediterranean and tropical areas. He is also concerned about the role of fires on global carbon, particularly through the release of carbon to the atmosphere, and the sequestration of pyrogenic carbon in soils.

After basic training in technical agronomy and classical biology, Chris Carcaillet obtained a Master’s degree in land management from the University of Rennes (France), a M.Sci. and a Ph.D. in ecology at Aix-Marseille University (France) and a Habilitation in ecology at Paul Sabatier University (Toulouse, France). From 1997 to 1999, he was post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Geography at the University of Montreal (Canada), then Research fellow from 1999 to 2001 at the Department of Forest Vegetation Ecology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Umeå , Sweden). Since 2001, Chris Carcaillet has been a professor in life and environmental sciences at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), an institute for advanced studies at PSL University (Paris, France). His is researcher at the Laboratory of Ecology of Natural and Anthropogenic Hydrosystems (LEHNA), a joint research unit of the Claude Bernard University (Lyon, France) and CNRS.

Chris Carcaillet teaches ecology, disturbance ecology, ecological functioning, conservation sciences and forest studies at the EPHE, PSL University and the University of Claude Bernard-Lyon.

Chris is a rugby passionate, XV and 7s, qualified coach, loving elegant and intelligent rugby. His hobby is cooking dishes from around the world.

École Pratique des Hautes Études