Dr. Kohler is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and past Director of the Institute of Environment and Sustainability at Western Michigan University. He joined the KRWC board in 2017. He represents the KRWC on Michigan’s Water Use Advisory Council, which advises MI-EGLE on Michigan’s water withdrawal assessment program.
Dr. Kohler is an aquatic ecologist whose research focuses on the nature of interactions among species and the consequences of these interactions for the dynamics of populations and the structure of communities. These questions are addressed with experimental and observational approaches over a broad range of temporal and spatial scales, using trout streams as a model system, including several Kalamazoo River tributaries. Dr. Kohler is also interested in the responses of stream systems to environmental perturbations and restoration activities at local to watershed scales.