He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1984, and won the George E. Pake Prize in 1994.
He received his bachelor's degree (1960) and PhD (1965) in physics from the University of Missouri.
[5][6] Brinkman joined Bell Labs in 1966, working in the physics research laboratory.
[5] Brinkman joined Princeton University in 2001, where he continued his condensed matter physics research.
In 2009, he was appointed as director of the Office of Science in the U.S. Department of Energy, where he served until 2013.