Ulrich Kohlenbach

Ulrich Wilhelm Kohlenbach was born on 27 July 1962 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He functions as a mathematician, logician, and computer scientist who focuses his research on proof theory and the methodology of proof mining. He holds a permanent position at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, where he serves as a professor of algebra and logic.

Academic Formation

Kohlenbach completed his secondary education at the Lessing-Gymnasium in 1980. He proceeded to study mathematics, philosophy, and linguistics at the Goethe University Frankfurt, supported by a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. He earned his Ph.D. in 1990 under the supervision of Horst Luckhardt and achieved his habilitation at the same institution.

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Professional Appointments

The academic career of Kohlenbach includes a visiting assistant professorship at the University of Michigan during the 1996/1997 academic year. In 1997, he relocated to Aarhus University to serve as an associate professor, a role he maintained until 2004. He currently holds a full professorship at the Technische Universität Darmstadt.

Institutional Leadership and Recognition

Throughout his career, Kohlenbach has held significant positions in professional societies. He served as president of the German Association for Mathematical Logic and for Basic Research in the Exact Sciences from 2008 to 2012, followed by a tenure as president of the Association for Symbolic Logic from 2016 to 2018. His scholarly contributions were recognized with the Kurt Gödel Research Prize in 2011. Additionally, he was an invited speaker at the 2018 International Congress of Mathematicians in Rio de Janeiro and became the inaugural recipient of the Ernst Zermelo Ring in 2024.