Stefan Panglisch is responsible for the Chair of Mechanical Process Engineering/Water Technology (MVT/WT) at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE). Linked to the professorship is a position as Scientific Director at the IWW Water Centre, a nationally and internationally renowned research and consulting institute. He is also Managing Director of the German Society for Membrane Technology (DGMT) and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the WIS Defence Science Institute of the German Armed Forces. In addition, he serves as project coordinator of the international research project MAMDIWAS (“Making mining-influenced water a driver for change to improve water security in South Africa”), which develops membrane-based concepts to transform mine-influenced water into a sustainable resource, and of the WE-Africa project, which establishes a university–industry membrane technology knowledge hub for sustainable water and energy management in Africa.

Before taking office, Stefan Panglisch was head of the R&D department at inge GmbH (now a DuPont brand), one of the world's leading technology providers for ultrafiltration technology. Prior to this, Stefan Panglisch was responsible for water technology at the IWW for more than a decade and carried out numerous research and consultancy projects in this role.