Alain-Yves Huc is Associate Director of the Geology-Geochemistry-Geophysics Division and Expert Director at IFP Energies nouvelles. He holds a PhD from Louis Pasteur University (Strasbourg, France). After being a postdoctoral research fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Massachusetts, USA) and a CNRS Research Associate (Orléans University, France), he joined IFP Energies nouvelles where he was head of the Geochemistry Department from 1988 to 2000.