Joël Fontaine was born in Béthune in 1971. He obtained his PhD in Fundamental and Applied Biological Sciences in 2001 at the Université du Littoral Côte d’opale. After a one-year postdoctoral fellowship in the microbiology unit of the Université Catholique de Louvain La Neuve, he was appointed in 2004 as a Lecturer at the Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale. In 2012, he is supporting his Habilitation Diriger les Recherches entitled “Impact of fungicide inhibitors of sterol biosynthesis and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on the lipid metabolism of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis partners”.

Currently a University Professor in the Plants-Fungus Interactions and Remediation team, his research activities are focused on the development of techniques using plant species to contain, extract or degrade organic and inorganic pollutants present in the soil. He is interested in the mechanisms that control the dynamics of pollutants in the rhizosphere and the role of the microbiota, and in particular that of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, in the remediation of polluted soils. From the laboratory to the workshop site scale, his work integrates technical, environmental and economic aspects and leads to the development of new ways of valorizing the biomass produced on polluted soils within the framework of the phytomanagement of historically polluted sites and soils.