 In 1969, Nowotny earned her Ph.D. in sociology at Columbia University, New York, where she completed her thesis on macrosociology and its methodology.She returned to Vienna to work as an Associate Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies.Nowotny's work in the 1970s and 1980s includes topics such as scientific controversies and technological risks, social time, coping with uncertainty, self-organization in science and gender relations in science, resulting in major monographs, co-edited and edited books and numerous articles.