Petra Schwer studied mathematics at the Universities in Ulm and Bonn and received her PhD in Münster under the supervision of Linus Kramer and Richard Weiss. After postdoc positions in the USA and France she worked as a commodity risk controller at RWE Power AG in Essen for 10 months. 
She returned to research with DFG "Eigene Stelle" funding before she became a Junior Professor at KIT. During the winter term 2017/18 she was a visiting professor in Heidelberg, in the spring 2018 she worked in Saint Étienne (France) for a month as a prof-invitée.
Schwer became a professor for geometry at the Otto-von-Guericke University on December 1st 2018.