Eugene Woldemar Hilgard was a German-American expert on pedology. An authority on climate as a soil forming factor, soil chemistry and reclamation of alkali soils, he is considered as the father of modern soil science in the United States.

Pedology is a discipline within soil science which focuses on understanding and characterizing soil formation, evolution, and the theoretical frameworks for modeling soil bodies, often in the context of the natural environment. Pedology is often seen as one of two main branches of soil inquiry, the other being edaphology which is traditionally more agronomically oriented and focuses on how soil properties influence plant communities. In studying the fundamental phenomenology of soils, e.g. soil formation, pedologists pay particular attention to observing soil morphology and the geographic distributions of soils, and the placement of soil bodies into larger temporal and spatial contexts. In so doing, pedologists develop systems of soil classification, soil maps, and theories for characterizing temporal and spatial interrelations among soils. There are a few noteworthy sub-disciplines of pedology; namely pedometrics and soil geomorphology. Pedometrics focuses on the development of techniques for quantitative characterization of soils, especially for the purposes of mapping soil properties whereas soil geomorphology studies the interrelationships between geomorphic processes and soil formation.