She earned a diploma there in 1983, and received her doctorate there in 1987 under the supervision of Wolfgang Zech.
She was offered a professorship at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in 1994, but turned down the offer, instead moving in 1995 to her present position at the Technical University of Munich.
[4] Kögel-Knabner has been a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina since 2001, a member of acatech (the German Academy of Science and Engineering) since 2007, a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 2017, a member of Academia Europaea since 2020,[4] and an international member of the US National Academy of Engineering since 2025, elected "for contributions to mechanisms for soil organic carbon persistence and impacts on soil functions and climate".
[4] She was the 2015 recipient of the Philippe Duchaufour Medal of the European Geosciences Union,[6] and the 2015 recipient of the Emil Ramann Medal of the German Soil Science Society.
[7] In 2015, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna gave her an honorary doctorate.