She is Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Sinology in the Department of Classical World and Asian Cultures at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg.
After continuing study in China at Fudan University,[2] she returned to Germany for a PhD at Technische Universität Berlin in 1997, supervised by Eberhard Knobloch.
[3] She earned a second doctorate in 1998 in France through Paris Diderot University,[2] and completed a habilitation at TU Berlin in 2008.
[1] Bréard was one of two 1998 recipients of the thesis prize of the Association française d'études chinoises.
[4] She was the 1999 recipient of the prize for young historians of the International Academy of the History of Science.