Prof. Dr. Annette Kehnel studied History and Biology at the University of Freiburg as well as the Somerville College Oxford and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. In 1995, she received her doctorate from Trinity College Dublin. After that, she was a researcher and teacher at the Technische Universität Dresden, where she completed her habilitation in 2004. In the same year, she was a substitute professor at the Technische Universität Dresden, before she joined the University of Mannheim where she holds the chair of Medieval History. From 2009 until 2013, she was dean for student affairs and then dean of the School of Humanities. Since 2019, she has been presiding the foundation council of the Ekkehard Foundation.