Dana Meissner was born in Jena in 1970. She completed a Diploma in Chemistry at the University of Rostock in 1993 and went on to gain a PhD in Chemistry in 1998. From 1998 – 2002 she was a Research Associate in the Department of Physics at the University of Rostock before becoming a Research Assistant at the Institute for Safety Technology / Ship Safety in Rostock-Warnemünde. Since 2009 she has been the Head of Research and Development at the institute and in 2014 - 2017 was the coordinator of the research project "Competence and organization for mass casualty incidence at sea".