Born in
Sollentuna, Stockholm, Sweden, Zakrisson grew up in Stockholm; her father was a
hydrologist and her mother is a medical doctor. She moved to
Fagersta Municipality in
Västmanland County in 1988 and left Sweden in 1997 for journeys to California, Asia and Africa. She studied at
Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge and
Stockholm University where she completed her doctoral thesis in 2015 entitled
"External Growth Control of Baltic Sea Cyanobacteria". From 2004 to 2006 she worked as a researcher for Max-Planck-Institute
Cologne. She is the mother of a daughter, born 2008. In 2012, she moved to Berlin and worked as a biologist and for
Charité. In an interview with Annika Merkelbach for
Skeptical Inquirer, when asked her academic career Zakrisson replied that "...I didn't want to stay in academia... The system sucks. I think it's built to remove all that wonder and childish enthusiasm that, in my opinion, should be the foundation of science." As of 2018, she is a resident of
Berlin, Germany, and worked as a
freelancer in
science communication for a two years before founding her consulting company Anna's Imaginarium GmbH & Co KG. In 2019 Zakrisson married internationally active opera singer
Joa Helgesson with whom she collaborates closely to create performative science lectures. == Science communication ==