biography

Eric Calais is Professor of Geosciences at the École normale supérieure (Paris). He specializes in the use of space geodesy to study the world’s seismically active regions and led field experiments worldwide — Caribbean, central Asia, east Africa — to study individual earthquakes or volcanic events, the deformation of plate margins, and the motion of tectonic plates. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences, of the Institut Universitaire de France (honorary), and Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite. He co-chaired the United Nations task force following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, then served as a scientific advisor to the United Nations for the post-earthquake reconstruction. He received the Jacob Prize from the French Academy of Sciences for his work on the application of space geodesy to the study of earthquakes and the Frank Press Prize from the American Seismological Association for his work at the intersection of science and society. He is the author of "Science and Conscience in the Post-Emergency of the Haitian Earthquake" (L'Harmattan, 2017). 

Eric Calais is Professor of Geosciences at the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris, France, member of the French National Academy of Sciences, and Senior Fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France. 

He graduated from the Ecole normale supérieure in 1997, received a MS at the University of Bretagne Occidentale (Brest, France) in 1988, and a PhD at the University of Nice (France) in 1991. He was postdoctoral researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (U.C. San Diego) until 1995, research scientist at the CNRS (Nice, France) until 2001, then professor of geophysics at Purdue University (USA) where he remained until 2012, until moving to Paris. He was University Faculty Scholar at Purdue University in 2005, received the Jacob-Fallot-Jérémine award from the French Academy of Sciences in 2008, the Frank Press award from the Seismological Society of America in 2012, and became Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite in 2023.

His research interests concern the kinematics and dynamics of active tectonic processes. His main tools are space geodesy and mechanical modeling of lithospheric deformation, which he use to decipher the processes that lead the formation of large-scale Earth structures at the boundaries between tectonic plates and in their interiors. He led many field experiments worldwide, in particular in the Caribbean, Asia, or East Africa, to study active deformation processes at spatial and temporal scales ranging from individual earthquakes or volcanic events to the deformation of plate margins or the motion of tectonic plates. He devotes a significant portion of his research to the enigma of high-magnitude earthquakes in regions with very low deformation-but high stakes-such as metropolitan France. He also uses GPS as an atmospheric remote sensing tool for tropospheric water vapor with applications to meteorology and climate. He pioneered the use of GPS to detect ionospheric perturbations triggered by earthquakes, volcanoes, and man-made explosions.

He co-authored close to 200 publications in top-tier peer-reviewed journals (h-index=64, >11,000 citations as of July 2025, Scopus and ISI WoS), has given over 60 invited lectures and seminars, and contributed to more than 150 presentations at national and international meetings. He has supervised 21 graduate students and teaches geodesy and geophysics at the undergraduate and graduate level.

He has been serving on many national and international committees and review panels in the U.S., France, Germany, U.K., etc. He has been convener, organizer, or program committee member for more than 30 international scientific meetings. He chaired the UNAVCO Board of Directors (2005-2008), the Scientific Council of the European Institute for Marine Studies at the Univ. of Brest, France (2008-2012), the Scientific Commission for Earth and Planetary Sciences of the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (2015-2020). He was elected on the Board of Directors of the Seismological Society of America in 2011. He was Head of the Geosciences department at Ecole normale supérieure and Director of the "Yves Rocard Research Laboratory" (joint research venture partnering ENS Paris, the CNRS, and the French Nuclear Energy Commission) from 2013 to 2018.  He was Chief Editor for Geophysical Research Letters from 2009 to 2014, and has been has been Chief Editor for Comptes Rendus Géosciences since 2021.

He has served as expert-consultant in seismic hazard and risk reduction for the World Bank, the International Development Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the European Union. He co-chaired the United Nations Haiti Earthquake Task Force after the devastating January 2010 earthquake. He served as scientific advisor to the United Nations in Haiti from 2010 to 2012, where he advocated and applied disaster risk reduction practices in the country's reconstruction.