After studying in Budapest for two years, Anja received her veterinary degree in 2014 from the Free University of Berlin. As a veterinary student, she gained wildlife management and rehabilitation skills in the US (MA/CA), went to Costa Rica, Kenya and Tanzania for voluntary wildlife conservation training and worked with the NGO ‘Whale and Dolphin Conservation’. As research assistant at the Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research, her work focused on post mortem investigations, health monitoring of and anthropogenic influences on the local marine mammal populations (harbour porpoises, harbour & grey seals) and other wildlife, as well as the EU funded project “Marine Mammals – Science Education”. In 2017, she was appointed the European Cetacean Society’s National Contact for Germany and ‘Animal Welfare Patron’ of the International Veterinary Students' Association. She was the first ECZM Resident at the ITAW, successfully completed the 3-years residency training in 2019 and earned her EBVS® European Veterinary Specialist in Wildlife Population Health status by board examination in 2020. She is a registered trainee for the German ‘expert veterinarian for wildlife’ (Fachtierarzt) specialisation and is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. student working on the development of minimally invasive diagnostic methods for harbour porpoise health status monitoring.