Katharina Brinkert's work focuses on artificial photosynthesis systems for the sustainable production of oxygen, fuels, and other chemicals in space environments and on Earth. In 2021, she was awarded the Zeldovich Medal for establishing the “Photoelectrochemistry in Space Environments” research area.

Katharina Brinkert received her PhD from Imperial College London in 2015. After stays as a Leopoldina Postdoctoral Fellow in Professor Harry B. Gray's team at the California Institute of Technology and as a research fellow at ESA's European Space and Technology Center (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, Professor Brinkert joined the University of Warwick in the UK in 2019. She worked there as an assistant and associate professor until 2024.