Rate My Professor Mikko Malaska

Mikko Malaska is Professor of Structural Engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Built Environment, at Tampere University. He graduated from Helsinki University of Technology with an M.Sc. in 1996 and earned his D.Sc. (Tech.) in Civil Engineering in 2001. Between 1996 and 2000, he conducted research projects developing slim-floor type steel-concrete composite structures and their connections at Helsinki University of Technology. From 2000 to 2001, he held a postdoctoral research position at the TNO Building and Construction Research Centre in the Netherlands, supervised by Delft University of Technology and financed by the Academy of Finland, where he interpreted data for improvements to Eurocode 4. Subsequently, from 2001 to 2009, Malaska worked as a structural engineer on a wide range of building and civil engineering projects and consultancies in the United Kingdom, becoming a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institution of Structural Engineers in 2004. In 2009, he joined the University of Oulu as Professor of Structural Engineering, taking responsibility for restarting structural engineering education, including syllabus and curriculum development, and lecturing undergraduate courses on steel-concrete composite structures. He served as Dean of Education for the Faculty of Technology there in 2014. In August 2015, Malaska started as Professor of Structural Engineering at Tampere University of Technology, now Tampere University. Since 2017, he has been Head of the Degree Programme in Civil Engineering and currently serves as Vice Dean for Education in the Faculty of Built Environment. He leads the Structural Fire Research Group, the Metal and Lightweight Structures research group, and the accredited Fire Testing Laboratory.

Malaska's research focuses on structural engineering and design, particularly structural fire engineering and fire safety of buildings. His academic interests include performance-based structural fire engineering and design, fire performance and resistance of steel-timber hybrid structures, development of calculation methods for timber buildings including charring of cross-laminated timber under standard and natural fires, fire performance of steel joints via experimental and numerical approaches, and reliability of fire protection equipment and systems. He has authored or co-authored numerous publications, including 'Behaviour of reduced web section connections in fire - an experimental and numerical study' (2026, Journal of Constructional Steel Research), 'Behaviour of shallow floors in fire situation' (2025, fib International Symposium), 'Experimental study on the bending resistance of cross-laminated timber exposed to ISO 834-1 standard fire' (2025, World Conference on Timber Engineering), and 'Fire Performance of Steel-Timber Hybrid Beam Section' (2024). Malaska reviews for scientific journals such as Fire Technology, has acted as an opponent and pre-examiner for doctoral dissertations, chaired workshops, and delivered invited lectures and public talks. His contributions align with UN Sustainable Development Goals on affordable and clean energy and climate action.