Katy Jinkins receives Wisconsin Alumni Foundation Forward Award

Katy Jinkins (PhDMS&E ’20) has been selected for a 2026 Wisconsin Alumni Foundation Forward Award. The award acknowledges rising stars in various fields who exemplify the Wisconsin Idea through an emphasis on service, discovery, and progress. Young alumni within 15 years of graduation who have demonstrated exceptional early-career achievement and a positive impact on their professions or communities are eligible for this award.

Jinkins, who majored in materials science and engineering, is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Madison-based startup SixLine Semiconductor, which is based on research she conducted as a PhD student. 

Having grown up in rural Wisconsin with parents who were both engineers, Jinkins says the field felt accessible in a way that it might not for other kids. Her mother, Pat Rummel Jinkins, a professor of industrial engineering, and her father, Richard Jinkins MS’86, a systems engineer, never pressured her to follow their path, but it was clear early on she had the interest and aptitude.

Jinkins earned her bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from UW–Platteville in 2015 before continuing to UW–Madison for her master’s and doctorate in materials science and engineering. UW–Madison is also where she met husband Robert Jacobberger PhD’16, when they were both graduate students; he is now an assistant professor in the UW’s College of Engineering.

As a student in Beckwith-Bascom Professor Professor Michael Arnold’s research lab, Jinkins began investigating the potential of carbon nanotubes to outperform the silicon used in various electronics, ranging from wireless communication to computing and sensing technologies. The challenge, however, is arranging the tiny tubes in precise patterns. They’re extremely small — 100,000 of them could fit in the space of a human eyelash — and they tend to tangle, almost like cooked spaghetti, making them harder to use. But Jinkins solved the problem that’s frustrated researchers for decades: how to straighten and align the tubes.

She worked with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation to patent her discovery and, after completing a postdoc at Northwestern University, she returned to Madison in 2022 to launch SixLine with Arnold, her former PhD adviser and now cofounder and collaborator. “I could see the massive impact this technology would have to revolutionize electronics and wanted to be the one to push it from the lab into industry,” Jinkins says.

The decision to launch SixLine at her alma mater was easy, given the university’s depth of talent and world-class facilities. In fact, SixLine’s small team consists almost entirely of UW-Madison graduates and faculty who are focused on further developing the materials and working with chip manufacturers to integrate them into real devices.

As CEO, Jinkins leads company strategy, partnerships, and technical direction — a leadership role she didn’t initially expect to embrace. The Morgridge Entrepreneurial Bootcamp introduced her to the business side of science, and today, “I really enjoy working at that intersection of technology development and strategy,” she says.

That perspective reflects her approach to work and its broader impact. Jinkins has long been involved in outreach to encourage women and others from underrepresented groups to consider pursuing STEM careers. “Talking to my mom, who earned her bachelor’s in engineering in the 1970s, there has been progress,” Jinkins says. “But it’s going to take continued, directed effort to increase awareness and opportunities in these fields.”

A version of this story was originally published by the Wisconsin Alumni Association.