[1] Boetius received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in March 2009 for her study of sea bed microorganisms that affect the global climate.

[7] Prior to undertaking graduate research, she spent time at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in Southern California, where she drew inspiration from marine microbiologists including Farooq Azam.

[8] While at Scripps, Boetius worked with sediments collected from the Clarion-Clipperton fracture zone, examining the small seafloor animals (copepods, nematodes) therein,[8] but ultimately decided to study even smaller organisms: microbes.

Boetius carried out her doctorate research in biology advised by Victor Smetacek, working to create the field she ultimately wanted to study: deep-sea environmental microbiology.

[8] She earned a doctor of philosophy (PhD) from the University of Bremen in 1996,[7] publishing a dissertation titled "Mikrobieller enzymatischer Abbau organischer Substanzen in Tiefseesedimenten" (Microbial enzymatic degradation of organic substances in deep sea sediments).