Reiner Onken was awarded the degree of Diplom-Ozeanograph at Kiel University in 1982 and the Ph.D. (Dr.rer. nat.) degree in 1986. His dissertation was entitled "Numerical simulation of the generation and the instability of mesoscale fronts."
Prior to receiving his Ph.D. degree, he was a Research Assistant at the Institut fur Meereskunde, Kiel, to which he returned as Research Assistant and Assistant Professor, following one year as Research Assistant at the Robert Hooke Institute, Oxford, U.K. He has been a Senior Scientist at SACLANT Centre, La Spezia, Italy, since 1996, where he pursues his research interests of modeling, mesoscale and submesoscale dynamics, and large-scale circulation of the Atlantic and Mediterranean.