She earned her doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna in 1917 on "Size Determination of Submicroscopic Particles Based on Optical and Mechanical Effects". From 1918 to 1919, she worked as an assistant at the University of Göttingen and, in 1920, as an assistant in the Physical Institute of the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin), where she was introduced to the experimental technique that became her major interest.