Prof. Dr. Klaus Richter

Academic Career and Research Areas

Prof. Richter peruses R+D and knowledge transfer in wood science and wood industry. His focus in wood material science is to elucidate structure-property relationships of wood matrix polymers and technical polymers to improve e.g. adhesion, coating and modification technologies. In environmental sciences, he analyses the sustainability of processes and products of wood and building industries and their resource and climate efficiency, e.g. by modelling and transforming cascading and end-of-life processes.

Richter studied wood science at the University of Hamburg and received his doctoral degree a DFG-research project about dendroclimatology at the Iberian Peninsula. As research scientist at Empa (Swiss Federal Lab for Material Science and Technology, CH) he spent a Post-Doc year at the Forest Products Lab in Madison, USA. From 2003 he was head of Empa´s Wood Lab and lecturer at ETH Zurich. In April 2011, he was appointed professor at the chair of Wood Science and in 2012 head of TUMs research laboratory wood. He currently is member of the scientific advisory boards for Forest politics and Bioeconomy.

Awards

• Joseph-Umdasch Research Prize (2006)
• Swiss Federal Office of Environment, Holz 21 New Horizons-Innovation pool. Research award: Improved acoustic properties of sound wood (team award with 2 coworkers (2006)
• Collano Innovation Prize (2004)
• George G. Marra Award for excellence in research and writing (1996)
• Wilhelm Klauditz-Prize for Wood Research and Environmental Protection, awarded by International Association for Technical Issues Related to Wood (1992)