PD Dr. sc. (PhD) Sebastian Schwindt (he/him) is a researcher specializing in ecohydraulics and hydro-morphodynamics under global change pressure, and earned his habilitation with the venia legendi in ecohydraulics in July 2025. He leads the hydro-morphodynamics group at the Institute for Modelling Hydraulic and Environmental Systems (IWS) at the University of Stuttgart (visit his institutional profile).
He completed his Bachelor’s (2010) and Master’s (2012) studies in Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Munich (Germany). After a detour into the private hydropower sector, Sebastian accomplished his doctorate in Civil Engineering at the Ecole Polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland) from 2013 to 2017 under the supervision of Prof. Anton J. Schleiss and Prof. Mário Franca.
Later, Sebastian pursued postdoctoral research at the University of California, Davis (USA), with Prof. Greg Pasternack. The emphasis of his postdoctoral research was on the flood-safe restoration and ecohydraulic enhancement of the Yuba River (California, USA) based on remote sensing (lidar) imagery and numerical models. Find the full scientific record at ORCID.org.
Passionate about “black screens,” Sebastian helps administer the web presences of the AFS-BES/ASCE-EWRI Joint Committee on Fisheries Engineering and Science and the Ecohydraulics community (ecohydraulics.org), where he also regularly contributes blog posts. Additionally, Sebastian contributes to several groups and divisions within the Deutsche Vereinigung für Wasserwirtschaft, Abwasser und Abfall (DWA).
Outreach
Find tutorials and short videos zooming into water resources and numerical tools on Sebastian’s @hydroinformatics (Hydro-Morphodynamics) channel on YouTube.
Read Sebastian in the Ecohydraulics community blog at ecohydraulics.org, where he is also a site admin.
For contact options visit the IWS team page or reach out on LinkedIn and ResearchGate.