Dr Busse had already assumed the duties of Vice President since December 2020. The doctor of biology had been Head of Division “Environmental Health and Protection of Ecosystems” at UBA since 2015. She achieved strategic alignment of the Division Departments “Environmental Hygiene”, “Water and Soil”, “Drinking Water and Swimming Pool Water Hygiene” and “Air Quality”.

Prior to that, Dr Busse worked for 10 years at the California Environmental Protection Agency doing research and policy advising and was also Scientist and Lead of Water Programmes for the State of California. During her time there, she successfully involved the various stakeholder groups in decision making processes. From 2002 to 2006, Dr Busse worked as Scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California San Diego. She had previously been a postdoctoral researcher on a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Program at the University of California Santa Barbara.

Dr Busse represents UBA on several scientific advisory boards, committees and boards and currently chairs the Scientific Advisory Board of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig. In July 2018 she became member of the Expert Commission on Fracking established by the Federal Government. In July 2020, she became Chair of the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM). Dr Busse earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Technical University Munich and a PhD at the Institute of Environmental Technology of Technical University Berlin.