Susanne Ritzmann studied industrial design at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle and product and process design at the University of the Arts Berlin (UdK). She completed her doctorate as a design researcher there in 2012-17 in the area of design didactics and sustainability. Her dissertation, which considers waste as a constant relevant to design theory in terms of sustainability, was supported by a dissertation grant from the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU). She then served as a Senior Researcher at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Berlin, where she did work on open source structures in the area of mobility at an experimental think tank financed by the VW Sustainability Council.

Between 2020 and 2023 Susanne Ritzmann worked as an academic advisor in research funding in the area of education and scholarship, supporting federal and state ministries in conceiving and implementing grant programs. In addition she has conducted workshops, projects, and studies with and for contractors from politics, education, academia, and civil society in the areas of digitization and education.

Since 2013 Susanne Ritzmann has held a number of teaching positions at the University of the Arts Berlin, the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft (University of Applied Sciences HTW) Berlin, and the Hochschule für Medien, Kommunikation und Wirtschaft (University of Applied Sciences HMKW) in Berlin.

Susanne Ritzmann is a member of the German Society for Design Theory and Research (dgtf).