[2][3] Hofmann studied geology and geochemistry in Freiburg in Germany, and completed his PhD degree at Brown University from 1962 - 1968.

His thesis on hydrothermal experiments on partitioning and diffusion of alkali metals in biotite-alkali chloride solutions was awarded in 1969.

He has been emeritus in Mainz and visiting senior research scientist at Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University since 2007.

[5] "All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License."

{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 4.0 license.