Sarah Kittel-Schneider has studied medicine at the University of Würzburg, Germany and has undergone specialisation training for general adult psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the University Hospital in Würzburg, Germany. She was leading  consultant and vice director of the Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Frankfurt/Main, Germany. After that, she was vice director and professor of Developmental Psychiatry of the Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the University Hospital in Würzburg, Germany. Since June 2023 she is Chair of Psychiatry at the University College Cork and consultant General Adult Psychiatry in the Mental Health Service South Lee Cork, Ireland.

She is interested in neurodevelopmental mental disorders that appear in childhood and adolescence and then persist into adulthood. She is especially focusing on  research of biological pathomechanisms of ADHD (attention-deficit-/hyperactivity disorder) and affective disorders (bipolar disorder and major depression) using human-derived cellular models and investigating blood-based markers. Furthermore she is investigating psychosocial and biological risk factors of peripartum mental disorders, again with a focus on mood disorders and ADHD, meaning mental disorders during pregnancy and breast-feeding period and their impact on the development of children of affected parents.