 In 2012 she was a winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Earth, ocean, and atmospheric sciences.Penkman is the 2016 winner of the Joseph Black Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry "for rigorous and ground-breaking work in the field of amino acid racemisation dating and its application to earth and archaeological sciences".She is also the winner of the 2017 Pittcon Royal Society of Chemistry Award, and the winner in the Chemistry category of the 2020 UK Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists.