Yvonne Wasserloos studied musicology, modern and contemporary history, German and Scandinavian studies at the University of Münster and completed her doctorate in musicology under Klaus Hortschansky in 2002. She has since worked as a lecturer and visiting professor for musicology and cultural history in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Copenhagen, London, Leuven, Lüneburg and Münster. In 2014, she completed her habilitation at the Folkwang University of the Arts Essen with the publication »Musik und Staat. Dimensionen der Interaktion im 20. Jahrhundert«, which was honoured with the Düsseldorf Jonges Award for Musicology in 2013.

From 2017 to the summer semester of 2022, she was Professor of Musicology at the Institute of Musicology, Music Education and Theatre Pedagogy at the Rostock University of Music and Theatre, where she took over as Academic Director of the Centre for Ostracised Music at the Rostock University of Music and Theatre in 2021. Since the winter semester 2022/23, she has been a university professor of musicology at the Mozarteum University Salzburg. Since 2019, she has been a member of the cross-university »Netzwerk Bildung und Demokratie in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern«  at the University of Rostock. She is co-founder and co-editor of the interdisciplinary publication series »Schriften zur Politischen Musikgeschichte« (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen), which was established in 2017.

In autumn 2023, Yvonne Wasserloos founded the research group »Musik und Macht – Dimension und Kontext« (AMUM) at the Mozarteum University Salzburg, which she has headed ever since.