She studied mathematics at the University of Vienna, with a year visiting the University of Zurich, and completed her Ph.D.
in 1973 at the University of Vienna.
Her dissertation, Über Kongruenzverbände universaler Algebren und binärer Systeme [On congruence relations of universal algebras and binary systems] was supervised by Wilfried Nöbauer.
During her studies she married another mathematician, Thomas Hoffmann-Ostenhof.After two years at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, she returned to the University of Vienna, where she was employed in various part-time positions.
In 1991, she earned a habilitation in mathematics, the first woman at the university to do so; her habilitation thesis was Nullstellen und asymptotisches Verhalten von L2-Lösungen von Schrödingergleichungen [Zeros and asymptotic behavior of L2-solutions of the Schrödinger equation].She became an associate position at the University of Vienna in 1992, and was given the title of University Professor in 2008.