After graduating at the Technical University of Karlsruhe in Civil Engineering Dr. Köhler started his professional career in the Group of Risk and Safety chaired by Michael H. Faber at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in the year 2001. The results of his research have been related to the development of probabilistic models for the strength and stiffness related properties of structural timber leading to implications for timber grading, long term load bearing behaviour of timber structural elements, the development of a hierarchical model for the spatial variation of timber material properties and the load bearing behaviour of timber connections. On top of that, the developed insights from this research build the basis for the JCSS Probabilistic Model Code for Timber structures issued in 2006 (www.jcss.ethz.ch). Dr. Köhler is currently chairman of the COST Action E55 ‘Modelling the Performance of Timber Structures’ and he is an active member of the Comité Européen de Normalisation CEN TC 124 and 250. Beside his scientific work Dr. Köhler is engaged in engineering consulting since 2007. The projects conducted in this context are related to the management of risks in the built environment. Examples for the considered issues are the management of operational risks in road tunnels, risk assessment and decision support in connection with geo-thermal exploration projects, development of safety concepts and general risk related consulting of large building projects.
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