Christiane Naumann studied Social Anthropology, Sociology and Educational Science at the University of Hamburg. After her studies, she worked as a research assistant at the University of Cologne and conducted research on land use change in a former homeland of South Africa as part of her doctorate. She then was a scientific assistant at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne, where she coordinated the interdisciplinary Master's program Culture and Environment in Africa.
Since 2019, she works at the Department of Research Management (D7) at the University of Cologne. She is a project manager in matrix position being responsible for BiSS-Transfer at the Mercator Institute.