The Soil Science department is an international leader in field-based, landscape-scale research and faculty are actively involved in research that focuses on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem health—linking basic micro-scale science (involving synchrotron-based, molecular-scale studies to elucidate fundamental processes at work) to real world issues at the landscape (studying the interaction of soil, topographic, and environmental factors to better understand ecosystem functioning) and global (investigating climate change impacts on prairie and arctic ecosystems) scales. The Soil Science graduate program provides core expertise in soil and environmental sciences and offers opportunities for advanced study and research leading to M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees.