Esther Hanna Handschin was born in Frankfurt am Main and grew up in Basel and Zurich. She studied Protestant theology in Zurich and Heidelberg.
Since 1999, she has served as a pastor of the United Methodist Church (Evangelisch-methodistisch) in Austria (Linz, Salzburg, Vienna, and Graz). She contributed to the completion of the Reformed Hymnal of Switzerland in 1998 and to the compilation of the hymnal of the United Methodist Church for Germany, Switzerland, and Austria in 2002. She has been a member of the IAH since 2001.