Katharina Boele-Woelki is Professor of Private International Law, Comparative Law and Family Law at Utrecht University, The Netherlands and Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape, South-Africa. Since 2001 she has been the chair of the Commission on European Family Law which was established upon her initiative. She is president of the Dutch Association of Family Law, member of the board of the Dutch Association of Comparative Law, and member of several editorial boards of Dutch and European and South-African law journals. She is also a member of various associations, such as the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerrecht as well as the Wissenschaftliche Vereinigung für Familienrecht . Since 2003 she has been one of the editors of the European Family Law Series. In 2007 she established the Utrecht Centre for European Research into Family Law (UCERF). She is a titular member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. She has organized prestigious international conferences, delivered numerous guest lectures at various universities around the world and has acted as a reporter, speaker, expert and panel member in many international conferences.

In 2011 she has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Uppsala. In 2012 she has received the Anneliese Maier Forschungspreis of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung (Germany) for her work in the field of international and European family law. In 2013 she has been elected member of the International Advisory Board of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung . In 2014 she had been elected President of the International Academy of Comparative Law. Since 2015 she is taking on a new position as president of the Bucerius Law School.