Stefan Schmalholz is Full Professor of Tectonics and Geodynamics in the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Lausanne.
He studied Geology and Paleontology at the University of Würzburg, where he obtained a BSc (Vordiplom) in 1993. He then moved to the ETH Zurich where he obtained a MSC (Diplom, 1997) and a PhD (2000) in Natural Sciences, both from the Department of Earth Sciences. After two years working as geology consultant, he worked next at the University of Oslo in the Center of Physics of Geological Processes (PGP) as a senior researcher (2003-2004). He then came back to the Geological Institute at ETH Zurich, where he worked as senior lecturer (2005-2010). He moved to the University of Lausanne in 2010.
At the University of Lausanne, he was president of the CUSO doctoral program in Mineral Sciences (2013-2017), director of the ELSTE (Joint Geneva and Lausanne school of Earth sciences, 2017-2019) and director of the Institute of Earth Sciences (2015-2918). Since 2020 he is member of the Swiss National Research Council.
His main research interests are the quantification of geological processes with mathematical models that are based on the concepts of continuum mechanics and thermodynamics, particularly the study of mountain building processes.