Prof. Koch has earned his diploma in computer sciences at the University of Stuttgart. There, he proceeded with dissertation project which led to a doctoral thesis entitled Visuelle Dokumentsuche und -analyse im Anwendungsbereich geistiges Eigentum (Visual document search and analysis applied to the case of intellectual property in 2012.

Prof. Koch holds the position of provisional professor of media informatics at Ulm University during winter term 2017/18.

Visual Analytics, information visualisation and human computer interaction are the main research foci of Prof. Koch. Both, visual and interactive analytics of text documents are emphasised.

The primary research interest is concentrated on the intelligent indentation of visualisation and interaction techniques on the one hand, and machine based methods which facilitate research, analysis and extraction of information from big and multi layered data on the other hand, in order to enable experts as well as laymen. "To Facilitate" in this context is to solve analytical problems faster, more reliably and in a more trasparent fashion by using visual feedback loops.

The actual flields of application of this research encompass the assessment of patent documents, scientific texts and texts stemming from so called social media for which Prof. Koch develops specially adapted visualisation methods. He is also dedicated in investing into the visual analysis of textual sources which are subject of the humanities and social sciences, but also in the context of eHumanities.