Prof. Katrin Paula was honored with three research awards from the University of Mannheim. The Lorenz-von-Stein-Prize and the Prize of the Foundation for Communication and Media Studies honor the best doctoral thesis in Mannheim's social sciences as well as outstanding achievements in the field of communication and media research. Together with Dr. Christian Gläßel (Hertie School of Governance), she also received the prize of the Prof. Dr. Anna and Prof. Dr. Jörg Jiri Bojanovsky Foundation for the journal article "Sometimes Less Is More: Censorship, News Falsification, and Disapproval in 1989 East Germany", published in the American Journal of Political Science.

Prof. Paula has been the holder of the professorship for Global Security & Technology at the Hochschule für Politik / TUM School of Governance since the winter semester 2020/2021.