Wolfgang Cramer is an environmental geographer, global ecologist and research director (CNRS) at France’s Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Ecology (IMBE). He received his academic training at the Universities of Gießen/Germany (geography, diploma 1981) and Uppsala/Sweden (plant ecology, Ph.D. 1986).

From 1987 to 1993, he taught and conducted his research at the Department of Geography, Trondheim University (Norway) while also being a frequently visiting scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria). In 1992, he joined the newly founded Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Potsdam, Germany, as head of the department “Global Change and Natural Systems”, later to become the institute’s research domain “Earth System Analysis”.

In 2003, he was appointed full professor of global ecology at Potsdam University. In 2011, he left Potsdam for his present position. Since 1995, he has continuously been involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC).

In 2017, he was elected associated member of the Académie d’Agriculture de France.