Anita Pettersson defended her thesis “Co-Combustion of Biofuels and Waste Fuels in a Fluidised Bed Boiler. -A Phosphorus and Alkali Perspective” in 2008 at Chalmers University of Technology SE-41296 Göteborg, Sweden and University of Borås SE-50190 Borås. After that she got a possession as lecturer and researcher at University of Borås and gathered experience and knowledge within both teaching and research resulting in a Associate Professorship in 2015.

Her main topics in research are within thermal processes such as combustion, pyrolysis and gasification. Much of the research focus on material recovery ie. Phosphorus, zinc and char. She also uses thermodynamic modelling in her research both as a prediction tool and to support analysis results. She is one of the leading researchers when it comes to municipal sewage sludge and solid waste fuels in Sweden. The latest research project was founded by the Swedish Energy Agency trough ReSource and the participating companies with a total budget of 600 000 Euro.

In addition, Anita Pettersson is supervising PhD and MSc students in their thesis work. Most of the teaching is in the three International MSc programs in Resource Recovery, which she also is coordinating. However, Anita also gives courses in the BSc Energy Engineering program　with the topics of the courses related Resource Recovery, Energy Recovery, Combustion science, modelling, CAD, and measurement technology.