Biography

Eric Calais is Professor of Geosciences at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, France. He graduated from the Ecole Normale Supérieure (St Cloud, France), where he studied Earth Sciences and received the “agrégation” diploma in 1987. He 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 became professor of geophysics at Purdue University (USA) where he remained until 2012. E. Calais was nominated University Faculty Scholar at Purdue University in 2005. He received the Jacob-Fallot-Jérémine award from the French Academy of Sciences in 2008 and the Frank Press award from the Seismological Society of America in 2012. He was invited Professor at the Institut de Physique du Globe in Paris in 2009 and at the University of Brest (France) in 2008.

E. Calais' research interests concern the kinematics and dynamics of active tectonic processes. His main tools are space geodesy, in particular the Global Positioning System (GPS), and mechanical modeling of lithospheric deformation. He initiated and led many field experiments worldwide — incl. Caribbean, Asia, 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 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.

E. Calais has co-authored 124 publications in top-tier peer-reviewed journals (h-index=35 and 3510 citations as of May 2014, 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.

E. Calais has been Head of the Geosciences department at Ecole Normale Supérieure since January 2014. He was appointed in 2013 Director of the "Yves Rocard Research Laboratory" (joint research venture partnering ENS Paris, the CNRS, and the French Nuclear Energy Commission (CEA) for collaborative research on the earthquake deformation cycle and rock-fluids interactions). He has been Chief Editor for Geophysical Research Letters (2013 impact factor = 4.428, ranks #9 among 129 titles in Multidisciplinary Geosciences) since 2009, after serving as Editor from 2004 to 2008. He currently chairs the Scientific Council of the European Institute for Marine Studies at the Univ. of Brest, France. E. Calais was elected on the Board of Directors of the Seismological Society of America in 2011. He has been serving on a number of national and international committees and review panels. He has been convener, organizer, or program committee member for more than 20 international scientific meetings.

E. Calais 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. E. Calais 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.

© 2014