IT'IS FOUNDATION - Key Persons
Alessandro Fasse was born in Italy in 1990, but has lived his whole life in Germany, and since two years ago, in Zurich.
Alessandro has master's degrees in Physics from the University of Cologne and in Mathematics from the ETH. He is interested in every field of natural science that touches physics, mathematics, and/or computer science, like general relativity, quantum mechanics, fluid simulations, high-performance simulations, quantum computing, machine learning, etc. Alessandro joined ZMT as a Software Engineer / Computational Scientist in January 2019 to work with the Sim4Life team and joined ITIS March 2021 as a PhD student.
Job Titles:
- Professor Emeritus at the University of Bern
Alex Dommann is Professor Emeritus at the University of Bern and a member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW). From 2013 to January 2023, he headed the "Materials meet Life" department at Empa. Before that, he was CTO of CSEM, Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique, Neuch tel. He received his PhD in solid state physics from ETH Zurich in Switzerland in 1988 after graduating in solid state physics and crystallography at the University of Zurich.
Job Titles:
- Senior Software Developer
Job Titles:
- Professor of Anesthesiology and Vice President Medicine at the University of Zurich
- Vice President Medicine University of Zurich, Switzerland
Beatrice Beck Schimmer is Professor of Anesthesiology and Vice President Medicine at the University of Zurich.
She studied human medicine at the University of Bern and gained her habilitation at the University of Zurich in 2003. From 2005-2018, she was Chief of Service at the Department of Anesthesiology at the University Hospital Zurich. She has been a full professor of anesthesiology since 2009, performing basic, translational as well as clinical research.
Prof. Beck Schimmer's research areas include organ protection through the application of volatile anesthetics and topics of nanomedicine, and she has secured competitive third-party funding for both of these areas on numerous occasions. From 2012-2018, she was a member of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation and from 2016-2018 President of the specialized committee on careers as well as a member on the SNSF's Presiding Board. In addition, she held the role of Vice Dean for Academic Career Development and Equal Opportunities at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Zurich from 2017 until mid-2018. Beatrice Beck Schimmer has played an active part in promoting academic career development, particularly when it comes to career planning for women (mentoring program and the 'Filling the Gap' career support program of the Faculty of Medicine).
As Vice President Medicine Zurich, she is in charge of the leadership and management of the Faculty of Medicine together with the dean and deputy dean. She is responsible for the strategic development of university medicine in cooperation with the University of Zurich, ETH Zurich and the University's hospitals. The goal is to optimally coordinate the three areas of research, teaching and healthcare in Zurich.
Job Titles:
- Project Leader
- Virtual Population, Tissue Database
Bryn is the project leader in computational phantoms and heads the Virtual Population team. He has experience in unstructured mesh generation, finite element modeling, medical image analysis, and computer graphics. He has been leading the development of morphing and registration of anatomical phantoms, and the creation of the NEUROMAN models at IT'IS. Recently, his focus has been on personalized modeling for brain stimulation, EEG, etc., where he has established a state-of-the-art machine learning solution to segment patient MRI to obtain detailed personalized head models.
Bryn has more than 15 years of experience as a scientific software engineer and has been a core developer of ZMT's Sim4Life simulation platform since its inception. He is the lead architect of Sim4Life's analysis framework and has been the tech lead for 3D modeling (CAD/mesh/image processing). He has contributed to many other parts of Sim4Life, including the thermal and acoustic solvers, mesh generation, 3D visualization, and UI components.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director
- Project Leader
Carina Fuss was born in Germany. She gained her bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and a master's degree in Biomedical Engineering at ETH Zürich. She joined the IT'IS Foundation in October 2022, and is part of the team responsible for MRI Implant Safety evaluations according to ISO 10974. Her focus is development, continuous improvement and application of numerical toolsets, notably the MDDT, IMAnalytics with MRIxViP. Other projects include computational modeling and simulation tasks with Sim4Life and related customized research.
Job Titles:
- Personal Assistant to the Director
Charlotte Roberts was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England in 1984.
Charlotte relocated to Switzerland in 2010 to launch and manage the first Wellness Spa for a global health and fitness company. After that, she worked at the ICS International School as the Personal Assistant to the head of the school, where she was also used as a substitute for any department that needed her assistance and expertise.
Charlotte joined Z43 in June 2019.
Christian was born in Switzerland, in 1986. He studied Biology at the University of Zürich and completed his Bachelor's degree in 2014.
Christian joined the IT'IS Foundation in May 2014 as a scientific assistant with the Virtual Population team.
Job Titles:
- Senior Software Engineer, Mathematical Modeler
Cédric Bujard
PhD, Senior Software Engineer, Mathematical Modeler
o 2 S 2 PARC
Cédric Bujard was born in Switzerland. He joined the IT'IS Foundation in October 2021.
Cédric Bujard was born in Switzerland. He joined the IT'IS Foundation in October 2021.
Cédric first graduated from Berklee College of Music, Boston, USA, in musical theory and composition, and in sound production and engineering.
Cédric then obtained his master's degree in mathematics from ETH Lausanne (EPFL), and his PhD in mathematics from the University of Strasbourg, France. He worked for few years as a lecturer at EPFL before working in the private sector as a data scientist and software engineer.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director
- Project Leader
- Associate Director, Computational Life Sciences
Esra Neufeld was born in Zurich on September 30, 1978 and holds Swiss and French nationalities.
Esra studied philosophy, theology, and law for three years in the UK before entering a master's degree (MSc) in Interdisciplinary Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland. He obtained his MSc in Interdisciplinary Sciences in 2004 (primary domains: organic and physical chemistry, theoretical physics, and quantum electronics) with an MSc thesis in computational sciences, on Quantum Monte Carlo simulation of topological qubits. During his MSc studies, Esra worked as an inorganic chemistry research assistant (on safe and efficient hydrogen storage in inorganic compounds), a network specialist, programmer, software tester, content editor, and private tutor. After his MSc, Esra joined the IT'IS Foundation and the Computer Vision Laboratory (BIWI) at the ETH Zurich to work on his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, which he obtained in 2008. His PhD focused on personalized hyperthermia treatment planning, numerical modeling of electromagnetic (EM) tissue interactions and induced in vivo heating, assessment of magnetic resonance imaging safety, medical image segmentation, and measurement technology.
Since 2008, Esra is the Head of Computational Life Sciences at IT'IS where he is responsible for the development of the multi-physics simulation platform Sim4Life, and since 2018 he is the Associate Director of IT'IS. He further developed simulation and measurement analysis software as Product Head and Senior Developer at Schmid & Partner Engineering AG (2008 - 2009) and since 2009 is the Chief Science Officer at Zurich MedTech AG, where he is responsible for the development of medical treatment planning software and medical image processing tools. After having given occasional lectures at the ETH Zurich for several years, Esra was appointed lecturer at the ETH Zurich in 2015. In 2019, Esra co-founded TI Solutions AG to develop high-quality and flexible neuro-stimulation devices and treatment planning tools for temporal interference research.
Throughout his career, Esra has made significant contributions to various research areas, including (i) simulation and treatment planning software, (ii) personalized modeling and the generation of high-resolution functionalized anatomical models, (iii) medical image and imaging analysis, (iv) applied simulations, particularly in the field of bioelectromagnetics, (v) the study of interactions between exposure and physiology (e.g., EM-induced tissue heating), (vi) neuromodulation (neuroprosthetics, bioelectronic medicine, brain and spinal cord stimulation, novel stimulation paradigms), (vii) focused ultrasound for non-invasive surgery, reversible blood-brain-barrier opening, and neuromodulation (viii) measurement technology, (ix) verification, validation, and uncertainty quantification, and (x) standardization.
Esra has published numerous journal and conference papers as well as book chapters. He contributes to several standardization committees and serves as a consultant to companies and government agencies, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, on dosimetry, exposure safety, uncertainty assessment, verification and validation, numerical techniques, in silico clinical trials, and computational life sciences. Esra is an active member of several scientific societies and acts as a reviewer for a number of international journals, scientific conferences, and grant applications submitted to Swiss and international research funding schemes.
Job Titles:
- Sunrise Communications AG, Switzerland ( 1999 - 2005 )
Job Titles:
- Associate Director
- Member of the EXECUTIVE BOARD
- Associate Director, Antennas, Communication Systems
Myles Capstick was born in 1965 in northwest England. He earned his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Wales in Bangor in 1987 and 1991, respectively.
Myles was appointed as a lecturer in the School of Electronic Engineering Science at the University of Wales, Bangor in 1990, after which he moved to The University of York, Department of Electronics in 1996, where he was first lecturer and later senior lecturer.
In May of 2006, Myles joined the IT'IS Foundation, where he applies his expertise - across a wide range of areas encompassing RF, microwave and mm-wave systems, circuits, antennas, and measurements - to the research of the foundation in the areas of biological interactions, communications, EMC, and dosimetry.
It was during his school years that Myles developed his interest in radiofrequency (RF) electronics and was also introduced to RF and audio measurements and good measurement techniques / practice within the Laboratories of Angus McKenzie Facilities in London, where he worked during several summer holidays. His fascination with biomolecular and biological systems, developed during his PhD studies under the supervision of Professor Ron Pethig in the University of Wales, was further nurtured during the periods of his research at the MD Anderson Cancer Hospital in Houston, Texas, where he worked on the development of an electron spin resonance spectrometer for biomolecular applications, marrying RF and microwave circuit design with biological applications.
Since that time, he has gained broad and wide-ranging experience in analog, RF, microwave, and mm-wave design of systems, subsystems, circuits, filters, and antennas. He has wide experience in research and in the management of research in large multinational consortia and with industry. He has also undertaken industry-led consultancy for training and product development and analysis.
Furthermore, he has experience in the design and manufacture of RF equipment for use in dosimetry and, in particular, the equipment used in all the human volunteer trials within the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme of the UK Department of Health as well as studies with human phantoms. Other work has focused on the design of miniature antennas for portable wireless equipment and, in particular, the interaction with and changes in performance associated with the interactions of electromagnetic radiation with living tissue.
He also designed and developed the system concept and all the RF / microwave hardware of both payload and ground station for a stratospheric communications trial that was successfully held at the Swedish Space Corporation at ESRANGE, Kiruna as part of the EU IST project Capanina in August 2005.
Job Titles:
- Electrical Engineer / Mechatronics
Isaac Alonso was born in Barcelona in 1984 and moved to Switzerland in 2014.
He studied a B.Sc. in Telecommunications with a specialization in Electronics at the School of Engineering of Manresa (EPSEM-UPC) and a M.Sc. in Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence at the Computer Vision Center of Bellaterra (CVC-UAB).
Isaac joined the IT'IS Foundation in April 2021 as an Electrical/Mechatronics Engineer and is responsible for the development and maintenance of new in vitro and in vivo exposure systems.
Job Titles:
- Backend Software Engineer
Luisa Fleig was born in Germany. She joined the IT'IS Foundation in March 2025.
Luisa completed her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mathematics at the University of Freiburg. She then went on to do her doctorate in electrical engineering at CERN and TU Darmstadt.
Luisa is part of the simulation team
Matus Drobuliak was born in Bratislava, Slovakia. He joined the IT'IS Foundation in February 2023.
Matus studied Mathematics at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and later worked there as a Data Scientist and Software Engineer in various industries such as insurance, energy, and pricing. Matus is interested in Statistics, Software development, DevOps, and the whole product delivery life cycle.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director
- Project Leader
Ninad Chitnis was born in Mumbai, India. He joined the IT'IS Foundation in August 2022.
Ninad completed his bachelor's in electronics engineering in Mumbai, He then came to Zurich for his master's where he specialized in RF electronics and photonics.
Ninad graduated from ETH in June 2021, he will be working on future exposure assessment systems.
Job Titles:
- Senior Software Developer
Paolo Crosetto was born in Italy.
He joined the IT'IS Foundation in March 2020.
Paolo studied at the Politecnico di Torino and he earned his PhD in numerical mathematics at the EPFL, since then he has worked in supercomputing centers in Germany and Switzerland (JSC and CSCS), and Siemens in Spain.
Paolo will be working on Sim4Life development focusing on performance optimization.
Paraskevi Chrysopoulidou was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. She joined the IT'IS Foundation in February 2023.
Paraskevi has an MSc in Civil Engineering and is currently studying Physics remotely. The last few years in Zürich she was a part of 3D modelling team in the landscape architecture field.
Job Titles:
- Member of the EXECUTIVE BOARD
Job Titles:
- Professor of Photonics at the Department of Information Technology
Lukas Novotny is Professor of Photonics at the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at ETH Zurich since 2012. He was born in Opocno, Czech Republic, in 1966 (then Czechoslovakia).
He completed a diploma in electrical engineering at ETH Zurich in 1992 and went on to obtain a PhD (Dr. sc. techn.) from the same university in 1996. For his PhD thesis Light Propagation and Light Confinement in Near-field Optics, he collaborated with IBM Research Division in Ruschlikon, Switzerland.
In his professional career, Lukas Novotny was a research fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA (1996-1999) before becoming an assistant and subsequently associate professor of optics at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY, USA (1999-2007). In 2007 he was appointed professor of biomedical engineering (Department of Biomedical Engineering) at Rochester and, the same year, professor of optics and physics at the university's Optics and Physics Department. Before joining ETH Zurich, he spent a sabbatical year at ICFO, the Institute de Cienciès Fotòniques in Barcelona, Spain, and has since then been a Distinguished Invited Professor there.
Job Titles:
- Member of the EXECUTIVE BOARD
- Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
Alvaro Pascual-Leone is Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, Senior Scientist at the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research and Medical Director of the Deanna and Sidney Wolk Center for Memory Health, Hebrew SeniorLife, Boston, USA, and Scientific Director at the Guttmann Brain Health Institute, Institut Guttmann, Barcelona, Spain.
He received his MD in 1984 and his PhD in Neurophysiology in 1985, both from Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg, Germany. Following an internship in Medicine at Staedtisches Klinikum Karlsruhe in Germany and residency in Internal Medicine at Hospital Universitario de Valencia in Spain, he completed a Neurology residency at the University of Minnesota, and then trained in Clinical Neurophysiology and Human Motor Control at the University of Minnesota and the National Institutes of Health. He joined Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in 1997, after several years at the Cajal Institute of the Spanish Research Council.
Prof. Pascual-Leone is a world leader in the field of noninvasive brain stimulation where his contributions span from technology development, through basic neurobiologic insights from animal studies and modeling approaches, to human proof-of-principle and multicenter clinical trials. His research has been fundamental in establishing the field of therapeutic brain stimulation. His work has provided evidence for the efficacy of noninvasive brain stimulation in treating various neurologic and psychiatric conditions, including epilepsy, stroke, Parkinson's disease, chronic pain, autism, and drug-resistant depression.
He is a pioneer in the use of noninvasive brain stimulation and its application for the study of brain behavior relations and the development of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions in neuropsychiatry. His contributions range from technology development to basic neurobiological insights gained from animal studies and modeling approaches to human proof-of-principle and multicenter clinical trials.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Institute of Radiation Oncology of Kantonsspital Aarau
Stephan Bodis was born February 16 th, 1958 in Basel, Switzerland. He began his medical education in 1978 at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland and completed his medical degree in 1984 at the Medical School of the University of Basel, Switzerland.
He was a resident in Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine of Kantonsspital Baden from 1985-1987 and of University Hospital Zurich from 1987-1989. From 1989-1991, he served as a Clinical Fellow in Medical Oncology and as a Research Fellow in the Department of Hematology/Oncology and Molecular Pharmacology at the Institute Gustave Roussy in Villejuif-Paris, France. He was a resident in Radiation Oncology at the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA from 1991-1995, and, from 1993-1995, he was additionally a Research Fellow in Pediatric Oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cancer Research Center and Department of Biology, Cambridge MA. He served briefly as an attending physician in Radiation Oncology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston before returning to Switzerland as an instructor at the University of Zurich Medical School and attending physician in Radiation Oncology of the University Hospital Zurich. In March of 1998, he became Assistant Professor of the University of Zurich Medical School and was promoted to Professor in September of 2004.
Since November 2003, Stephan Bodis has been the Director of the Institute of Radiation Oncology of Kantonsspital Aarau. In September 2012, he was appointed Full Professor of the Medical Faculty of the University of Zurich and became an Associate Physician in the Department of Radiation Oncology of the University Hospital Zurich.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Director, Health Risk Assessment
Job Titles:
- Head of the Genome Plasticity Group at the Department of Biomedicine
- Professor
Primo Schaer is Dean of the Medical Faculty and Head of the Genome Plasticity group at the Department of Biomedicine of the University of Basel.
Qiuting Huang is Head of the Analog and Mixed-Signal Design Research Group, Integrated Systems Laboratory, Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, at the ETH Zurich.
He graduated from the Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China in 1982. From 1983 to 1987 he studied at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium, where he received his doctoral degree in electrical engineering in 1987. His doctoral dissertation was on optimal design of integrated circuits. Between 1987 and 1992 he was a lecturer at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. He was also affiliated to British Telecom as a bursary lecturer. He was named Assistant Professor in 1993, has been Associate Professor from February 1998 to March 2001 and full Professor since April 1, 2001 at the Institute for Integrated Systems of the ETH Zurich. The research interests of Prof. Huang cover a wide range of topics in microelectronics. They include mixed analog-digital integrated circuits such as analog to digital converters, sigma-delta modulators, amplifiers and filters; sensor interface circuits such as low noise instrumentation amplifiers, electromechanical oscillators and complete ultrasonic microsystems for barrier detection and ranging; fully integrated passive telemetry circuits for biomedical applications; smart power integrated circuits; ultra-high speed digital circuits in standard CMOS. One of the main thrusts of his current research projects is radio-frequency integrated circuits (RFIC) for wireless and mobile communication. His group recently developed complete front-ends for the ERMES pager standard and for GPS (global positioning system) receivers and are working on the realization of RF front-end for GSM cellular phones, using deep-submicron CMOS technologies.
Prof. Huang published over 100 technical papers in international journals and conferences and served on numerous conference technical program committees.
Quirino Balzano was born in Rome, Italy, in December 1940. In 1965, he received the Laurea of Doctor in Electronics Engineering from the University of Rome, La Sapienza, Rome, Italy.
During 1966, he was at FIAT, SpA, Turin, Italy. From 1967-1974, he was with the Missile Systems Division, Raytheon Corporation., Bedford, MA. He was involved in the research and development of planar and conformal phased arrays for the Patriot and other weapon systems. In 1974, he joined Motorola, Inc., Plantation, FL. In 1987 he became Vice President of the technical staff and in 1993 Corporate Vice President and Director of the Florida Research Laboratories. He retired from Motorola in February, 2001.
Since August, 2002 Prof. Balzano has been at the University of Maryland, Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept., College Park, Maryland, where he is a Senior Staff Researcher and teaches a graduate course on antennas. His main interests are in the biological effects of human exposure to RF electromagnetic energy and the safe use of wireless technology.
He received the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Paper Prize Award in 1978 and 1982 and a certificate of merit from the Radiological Society of North America in 1981 for the treatment of tumors with RF energy. In 1995 he received the best paper of the year award from the IEEE EMC Society. He is a Life Fellow of IEEE and former (2002-2005) Chair of Commission A of the International Union of Radio Science. He has written more than 50 papers on RF dosimetry near electromagnetic sources and the biological effects of RF energy. He has 31 patents in antenna and IC technology and has authored or co-authored more than 100 publications.
Wolfgang Fichtner received the Dipl. Ing. degree in physics and the PhD degree in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Vienna, Austria, in 1974 and 1978, respectively.
From 1979 through 1985, he worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ. From 1985 to 2011 he was Professor at the Integrated Systems Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich. From October 1999 to October 2004, he acted as Chairman of the Electrical Engineering Department at ETH Zurich.
In 1993, he founded ISE Integrated Systems Engineering AG, a company in the field of Technology CAD. In November 2005, he joined Synopsys Inc, Mountain View, CA, initially as Vice President and General Manager of the TCAD Business Unit and later as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Silicon Engineering Group.
Wolfgang Fichtner is a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the Swiss National Academy of Engineering. In 2000, he received the IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award for his contributions to Technology CAD. In 2001, Wolfgang Fichtner was elected as corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Job Titles:
- Personal Assistant to the Director
Stefan Beerli was born in Switzerland. He joined the IT'IS Foundation in February 2023.
Stefan obtained his masters in physics and PhD in theoretical high energy physics from ETH Zurich. He then joined the transceiver company AXSEM (later acquired by OnSemi), where his responsibilities were analog IC design, lab evaluation of transceivers as well as SW and firmware development.
Job Titles:
- Software Engineer, AI / ML Specialist
Job Titles:
- Project Leader High - Performance Neuroscience
Job Titles:
- Senior RF Engineer and Project Leader