Dr Katharina Brinkert
Prof Katharina Brinkert
Honorary Professor
Katharina is an Honorary Professor of the University of Warwick. She is currently a Professor of Human Space Exploration Technologies & Director of ZARM at Bremen University, Germany.
Photoelectrocatalysis for Terrestrial and Space Applications - ZARM
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 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 Ph.D. 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 the 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 environments. 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.
Katharina joined Warwick as an Assistant Professor in Catalysis in 2019, where she explored artificial photosynthesis research for solar-to-chemical energy conversion. Besides her passion for sciences, she enjoys sports, literature, film and theatre, music, philosophy and politics. She was promoted to Associate Professor in July 2023 and moved to Germany take up a professorial role at Bremen in 2024, becoming an Honorary Professor at Warwick in 2025.
"The Earth should be a better place because a man has lived." - Little Lord Fauntleroy