Dr. Venkatesh Kodur is a University Distinguished Professor and Chairperson in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and also serves as the Director of the Center on Structural Fire Safety and Diagnostics at the Michigan State University (MSU). Before moving to MSU, he worked as a senior Research Officer at the National Research Council of Canada (NRCC), where he carried out research in structural fire safety field. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Queen’s University, Canada, in 1988 and 1992, respectively.

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Dr. Kodur is an internationally recognized scholar for his contributions in structural fire engineering field. His research has focused on the experimental behavior and analytical modeling of structural systems under extreme fire conditions, Constitutive modelling of material properties at elevated temperatures, Developing guidelines for fire resistance design of structural systems, and Building collapse investigations. He conducts unique research in fire safety field, and has developed fundamental understanding on the behavior of materials and structural systems under extreme fire conditions. The techniques and methodologies resulting from his research is instrumental for minimizing the destructive impact of fire in the built infrastructure, which continues to cause thousands of deaths and billions of dollars of damage each year in the U.S. and around the world.

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The contributions of Dr. Kodur to the field of structural fire safety and high performing construction materials are seminal and numerous, and his research accomplishments have had major impacts. He has collaborated closely with various funding agencies, international organizations, and industries, and developed simplified design approaches, and innovative and cost-effective solutions for enhancing fire-resistance of structural systems. Many of these design approaches and fire resistance solutions have been incorporated in to various codes and standards (NBC, ACI, ASCE, SFPE) in the US and around the world.

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Dr. Kodur, together with his students and collaborators, has published results from his research in 425+ technical papers, which include 240+ peer-reviewed papers in prestigious international journals. He has also given numerous invited key-note presentations in major international conferences. According to Google Scholar, he has more than 11,000 citations with an "h” index of 58, and he is in the list of top 50 cited scholars in civil engineering field. Many of his journal publications had significant impact on science, technology and practice, because the scientific information presented in his papers formed the basis for developing design provisions in codes and standards.

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Dr. Kodur’s contributions to the Civil Engineering and the Fire Protection Engineering Professions have been recognized by peers through prestigious honors and awards. He has been elected as Fellow of five Institutes/Academies: Canadian Academy of Engineering, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Indian National Academy of Engineering, Structural Engineering Institute, and American Concrete Institute. He is a professional engineer, Associate Editor of Journal of Structural Engineering, and Journal of Structural Fire Engineering, editorial board member of five leading journals, Chairman of ASCE-29 (Fire) Standards Committee, and a member of UK-EPSRC College of Reviewers. He has won many awards including American Institute of Steel Construction Faculty Fellowship Award, MSU Distinguished Faculty Award, NRCC (Government of Canada) Outstanding Achievement Award, and NATO Award for collaborative research. Dr. Kodur was part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency/American Society of Civil Engineers "Experts Team" that investigated the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings as a result of September 11 incidents.