From 1996 she was an adjunct professor at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences, University of Oslo.
[1] In 1989 she received the Anders Jahre Medical Prize [no] for young researchers.
[7] She has been a board member and deputy chair of the Norwegian Radium Hospital and Institute for Cancer Research.
[8] She is a daughter of engineer Steinar Uchermann Sandvig and Danish-born Vera Pedersen.
Kirsten Sandvig's father worked at Mesna Kartonfabrik in Lillehammer at the time of her birth, but moved to Borregaard in Sarpsborg in 1951.