The University of Stuttgart has appointed Timo Koch as Junior Professor for Hydromechanics at the Department of Hydromechanics and Modelling of Hydrosystems (LH²), Faculty 2: Civil and Environmental Engineering. With his research on porous media, multiscale modelling, and open scientific software, Timo Koch builds upon the legacy of Rainer Helmig, who shaped hydromechanics research in Stuttgart for more than two decades.
“Rainer Helmig built an inspiring scientific environment where curiosity, interdisciplinarity, and collaboration come first,” says Timo Koch, “and I am excited to contribute to this tradition with my own research focus.”
Exploring Flow and Transport Across Scales
Timo Koch’s research explores the dynamics of flow and transport in complex porous systems – from the movement of water in soils to the exchange of fluids and solutes in the brain. His goal is to better understand and simulate coupled hydromechanical processes that take place across multiple spatial and temporal scales. To achieve this, Timo Koch develops mixed-dimensional mathematical models that link processes in networks (such as vascular or root systems) with the surrounding porous medium. These models provide new insights into processes that are difficult or impossible to measure experimentally.
“Porous media are everywhere – in rocks, soils, plants, and even within our own organs,” explains Timo Koch. “They connect environmental and biological systems. By modelling them computationally, we can understand and predict how flow and transport behave across vastly different scales.”
His research has direct applications in environmental engineering, for example, in simulating water and solute movement in soil, as well as in biomedical contexts, such as modelling blood and cerebrospinal fluid flow in the brain or oxygen exchange in tissue. The unifying theme of his work is to describe how interfaces between fluids and structures control the behaviour of natural and biological systems.
A Career at the Interface of Engineering, Mathematics, and Biophysics
Timo Koch studied Environmental Engineering at the University of Stuttgart, including an ERASMUS semester at Istanbul Technical University, and completed his Dr.-Ing. with distinction (summa cum laude) in Stuttgart in 2020. His doctoral thesis, supervised by Bernd Flemisch and Rainer Helmig, focused on mixed-dimensional models for flow and transport processes in porous media with embedded tubular network systems – a topic that now defines a key direction in multiscale porous media research.
After a brief PostDoc position with the Collaborative Research Center 1313 in Stuttgart, Timo Koch worked as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie (Scientia II) Fellow at the University of Oslo, where he led a project on advanced in-silico transport models for vascularized tissues, with a particular focus on the hydromechanics of the brain. He also held a teaching appointment as a lecturer in Applied Machine Learning at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Before returning to Stuttgart, he joined Simula Research Laboratory as a Project Researcher on the ERC project aCleanBrain led by Kent-André Mardal, where he collaborated with experts in numerical mathematics, neuroscience, and biology.
Open-Source Software and Scientific Collaboration
In addition to his scientific work, Timo Koch is a core developer of the open-source simulation frameworks DuMuX and DUNE, two widely used platforms for multiphysics and multiscale simulation in porous media research. His commitment to open science reflects a belief that better software leads to better research and that software can be a scientific product in its own right – one that must be reliable, transparent, and accessible to the entire community.
“Developing open and reproducible scientific software is a core part of my research,” says Koch. “Software is not just a technical tool – it’s a way of ensuring that science is collaborative, verifiable, and sustainable.”
Timo Koch has co-organized numerous international workshops and minisymposia at major conferences such as InterPore, SIAM Geosciences, and ECCOMAS, helping to connect researchers from environmental, mathematical, and biomedical communities. He is a member of InterPore, the International Society for Porous Media, and maintains many collaborations, including with partners at the University of Bern, ETH Zurich, University of Oslo, Simula Research Laboratory, and Forschungszentrum Jülich.
Strengthening SimTech and SFB 1313
With his appointment, Timo Koch becomes strongly involved in the Cluster of Excellence “Data-Integrated Simulation Science (SimTech)” and the Collaborative Research Centre “Interface-Driven Multi-Field Processes in Porous Media – Flow, Transport and Deformation” (SFB1313). His research will continue to advance the numerical and conceptual foundations for multiphysics and multiscale simulation science and strengthen the connection between SimTech’s data-integrated modelling approaches and SFB 1313’s focus on interface-driven processes.
“Timo Koch brings exceptional expertise in numerical modelling and interdisciplinary simulation science,” says Holger Steeb, Director of SC SimTech. “His work perfectly complements the vision of both SC SimTech and SFB 1313 – to understand, model, and simulate complex processes in porous media across scales.”