Sabrina Habich-Sobiegalla studied Chinese Studies, Political Science and Business in Würzburg, Beijing and Vienna. She was a PhD student in the International Doctoral Program in Asia-Pacific Studies (IDAS) at the National Chengchi University in Taipeh from 2009 to 2013, where she wrote her PhD thesis on forced resettlement due to damm building in southwest China. Her thesis was the basis for her book Dams, Migration and Authoritarianism in China: The Local State in Yunnan which was published in 2016by Routledge. 

Sabrina Habich-Sobiegalla's research is about the social and economic changes in China and Taiwan since the beginning of the 20th century. Her research topics span from political sociology in China to the relationship between the center in Beijing and the local state on and around the province level, to the local implementation of politics. In doing this, she is momentarily concentrated on Chinese resource, industry and energy policies and their consequences. Her current research project is about the resource 'water' as a public property and its meaning in the various social groups. Her focus has thus far been on the introduction of a market for water and the consequences on local actors in different regions ( Hierbei liegt der Fokus auf der Einführung eines Marktes für Wasser und dessen Auswirkung auf lokale Akteure in verschiedenen Regionen Chinas (up until now Yunnan, Inner Mongolia and Jilin).