After finishing her diploma in Psychology, she worked in the department of Empirical Educational Research at the University of Konstanz with Dr. Thomas Goetz. She received her PhD (psychology) in 2013. In her dissertational thesis, she investigated relations between trait and state academic emotions. For example, she found gender differences in math anxiety on trait measures of anxiety but not on state measures. Her research focuses on emotions and self-concept in the learning and achievement context. She is interested in the role of emotions with STEM domain and career choices, gender and math anxiety, and structure, antecedents, and assessment of academic emotions. In her research projects, besides trait questionnaire assessments, she uses the experience-sampling method to study student’s emotions in real-life settings.