Since 2009, Anna Iara has been a staff member of the fiscal policy/fiscal governance unit of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs. Earlier she worked at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies and the Center for European Integration Studies of the University of Bonn, where her research covered labour economics, migration, regional economics, and applied econometrics.

Anna Iara holds a doctoral degree in economics from the University of Bonn and completed her graduate studies at the Central European University (MA in economics) and the University of Bonn (MSc in geography).