Katharina is passionate about natural and artificial photosynthesis research since her school time, where she participated in several science competitions. She received her BSc degree in Chemistry from the University of Bielefeld, Germany and her MSc degree in Chemistry for Renewable Energy from Uppsala University, Sweden. She carried out her master's degree project at the Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis at Arizona State University under the supervision of Prof. Devens Gust. Returning to Uppsala for her first year of PhD studies, she worked with Prof. Stenbjörn Styring and Prof. Leif Hammarström on proton-coupled electron transfer kinetics in nature's water-splitting enzyme, Photosystem II. She then moved to the Imperial College London, where she continued investigating electron transfer pathways and their energetics in Photosystem II via spectroelectrochemistry, working with Prof. Bill Rutherford and Dr. Andrea Fantuzzi. Katharina received her PhD from Imperial College London in 2015.

Consecutively, Katharina received a Research Fellowship from the European Space Agency/the Advanced Concepts Team (ESTEC/Noordwijk) for an independent research project on solar hydrogen production in microgravity environment. She continued her work in the area of artificial photosynthesis, specializing in photoelectrochemistry and photoelectrocatalysis for solar oxygen, fuel and chemical production in terrestrial and microgravity environment. Following her work at ESA, Katharina received a Leopoldina Postdoctoral Scholarship to work with Prof. Harry B. Gray at the California Institute of Technology, where she developed new electrocatalytic materials for electrochemical ammonia production.

Since September 2019, Katharina is an Assistant Professor in Catalysis at Warwick where she does what she always wanted to do: artificial photosynthesis for solar-to-chemical energy conversion. Besides her passion for sciences, she enjoys sports, literature, film and theatre, music, philosophy and politics.

"The Earth should be a better place because a man has lived." - Little Lord Fauntleroy