Monica D. Kohler

Monica D. Kohler is a Research Professor of Mechanical and Civil Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Caltech (1995) and an A.B. in Physics from Harvard University (1988). Her career includes roles as Assistant Research Engineer at UCLA (1998-2011), Visiting Associate at Caltech (2007-11), and Research Assistant Professor at Caltech (2011-17).

Research Interests: Dr. Kohler's work bridges earthquake engineering and observational seismology. She develops methods to detect structural damage using seismic arrays, applies tomographic inversion to study urban ground motion, and investigates wave propagation in buildings and geological systems. Her research leverages IoT sensor networks and real-time data for city-scale seismic monitoring.

Article Trends: Her recent publications focus on structural health monitoring of high-rises via coda wave interferometry, community seismic networks for urban resilience, and subduction zone dynamics. Key subfields include nonlinear damage identification, tsunami wavefront mapping, and edge computing applications for seismic data.

Students & Collaborations: She supervises graduate students at UCLA (Viviana Vela, Gloria Hyun, Esra Zengin) and collaborates with institutions like Caltech, UCLA, and IRIS. Her projects include the Community Seismic Network (CSN) and ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system.

Contact: Office at 318 Gates-Thomas Laboratory, Caltech. Email: kohler@caltech.edu.