She graduated in Biology in 1992 (with a minor in physics) and concluded a PhD „Modification of the near-bottom flow regime and the deposition of suspended material by macrofauna” both from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Kiel University.
She then worked in the field of deep-sea ecology at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel and the University of Rostock until 2001. Among other things, she led seagoing expeditions and supervised doctoral students. She also helped to apply for the EU project OASIS (Oceanic seamounts – an integrated study), which was coordinated at the University of Hamburg, and worked as a research assistant within this project at the University of Rostock. Her field of work included research concerned with production and biogeochemical fluxes at kilometre-scale seafloor features. One of the aims was to estimate the sphere of influence of individual seamounts on biogeochemical processes and to assess a carbon budget within this sphere.
Since the beginning of 2002, she has been employed by a medical publishing house (mhp Verlag, Wiesbaden), where she edits a medical journal. Since 2003, however, she has continued to work in the field of marine science with colleagues from the universities of Hamburg, Rostock and Funchal on marine expeditions (eg. within the OASIS project) and publishes the results in international journals.