Nik Chavannes was born in Bern, Switzerland in April 1972. He received his MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich in 1998 and 2002, respectively.
In 1996, he joined the Bioelectromagnetics/EMC Group (BIOEM/EMC) at ETH Zurich where he widened his experience in numerical simulation techniques using the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method, applied to Electromagnetics. From 1998 to 2002, Nik Chavannes was a Graduate Research Assistant within the Laboratory for Electromagnetic Fields and Microwave Electronics (IFH) as well as the Laboratory for Integrated Systems (IIS), both located at ETH Zurich. His PhD thesis was focused on the development of enhanced FDTD local refinement techniques and their application to numerical near-field analysis, antennas and improved modeling capabilities in general.
In early 2002, he joined SPEAG as Director of Software where he is responsible for the software R&D activities, focusing mainly on innovations and implementations for SPEAG's major products, namely SEMCAD X as well as the experimental near-field scanners DASY and the novel cSAR3D product line. In addition, he is involved in various projects within the Foundation for Research on Information Technologies in Society (IT'IS), Switzerland, related to EM near- and far-field assessment as well as dosimetry, using the means of Computational Electromagnetics. At IT'IS, he is leading the project POSEIDON which involves the extension and improvement of the advanced electromagnetic simulation platform SEMCAD towards uWave simulation. Currently Nik also serves as the Head of Software at ZurichMedTech, leading the software development related activities for the Sim4Life platform.
Nik's primary research interests include the development, implementation and application of computational modeling and simulation techniques to Electromagnetics in general, and antennas as well as bioelectromagnetic interaction mechanisms in particular. Special emphasis is given to the usage of computational means supporting R&D processes with respect to forthcoming trends in fields of BioMed and Life Sciences. His research activities have resulted in various scientific publications, book chapters and numerous conference/invited presentations within the areas of theoretical FDTD-related electromagnetics, numerical and experimental near-field analysis, antenna design and dosimetry. In addition, Nik contributed to classes and giving lectures at ETH Zurich, operating as reviewer for several IEEE journals, furthermore, acting as session organizer and chair for international conferences within the related fields.