Frans Padt is a teaching professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education at Penn State. He teaches in the Community, Environment, and Development (CED) major and the Community and Economic Development (CEDEV) online graduate program and was recently appointed to the School of Public Policy. His teaching covers public policy, land use planning and design, community engagement, and sociological theory. He also develops new courses and hands-on learning experiences for students.

Before joining Penn State in 2011, Padt held academic and research appointments at Wageningen University and Research Center and Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Earlier in his career, he worked as an environmental policymaker for the provinces of Flevoland and Gelderland and as a consultant for soil conservation, groundwater protection, and sustainable regional development for the Center for Agriculture and Environment.

Padt’s current scholarship centers on creating engaged-learning pedagogies and faculty development resources for community-engaged and inquiry-based education. His earlier academic research covered topics such as scale-sensitive governance, community-based research, rural development, and international water management. He has published articles in journals including the Journal of Planning Education and Research, Sustainable Development, and the Natural Resources Journal. He has also contributed to edited volumes and was co-editor of Scale-Sensitive Governance of the Environment. Padt has presented his work at conferences including the Engaged Scholarship Consortium, the International Symposium on Society & Resource Management, and the Biennial Conference on University Education in Natural Resources. He has also given invited talks and workshops at universities in the United States and Europe.

He holds a Ph.D. in Political Sciences of the Environment from Radboud University Nijmegen (2007) and an M.Sc. in Environmental Hydrology from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (1988).