Born on 25 May 1964 in Unna, Fless matriculated from the city's Geschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium in 1983. She then studied history of art, ancient history and classical archaeology at the universities of Trier, Würzburg and Mainz.[4][5] Completing an assignment on Opferdiener und Kultmusiker auf stadtrömischen historischen Reliefs (Sacrificial Servants and Cult Musicians on Historical Reliefs) she graduated from Mainz in 1992, after which she received a travel grant from the Archaeological Institute in 1993.[3]
In 1994, she embarked on research at the University of Cologne, completing work on Überlegungen zu den Formen der Aneignung und den Funktionen attisch-rotfiguriger Vasen im 4. Jh. v. Chr. (Reflections on the forms of appropriation and the functions of Attic red-figure vases in the 4th century BC) which led to her habilitation in 2000 and the corresponding colloquium. After serving as a lecturer for three years at the University of Leipzig, she was appointed professor at the Institute for Classical Archaeology at the Free University of Berlin. She was a major contributor to the Berlin universities' Cluster of Excellence on Topoi – The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations.[6] In 2011, she became President of the German Archaeology Institute.[5][3]
In 2014, Fless received an honorary doctorate from the Humboldt University of Berlin.[3]
