Katharina Boele-Woelki is President of Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, where she also serves as the Claussen Simon Foundation Professor of Comparative Law. Until September 2015, she was Professor of Private International Law, Comparative Law and Family Law at Utrecht University. In 2017, she has been appointed Extraordinary Professor at the Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She established the Commission on European Family Law (CEFL) and the Utrecht Centre for European Research into Family Law (UCERF).
Katharina Boele-Woelki was president of the International Academy of Comparative Law from 2014 to 2022. Since 2022, she chairs the Academic Advisory Board of the University of Cologne. She is a member of the Curatorium of The Hague Academy for International Law and was awarded honorary doctorates from Uppsala University, the University of Lausanne, the University of Antwerp, and the University of Pretoria, as well as the Anneliese Maier Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She is an elected member of the Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Hamburg.