Brian Adolf founded Nifty Analysis and Design in 2004. Previously, Brian worked as a contractor designing and optimizing laser measurement systems for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, CO, and more recently as an analog integrated circuit Design Engineer for Linear Technology in Silicon Valley. While there he designed, developed, and manufactured DC/DC converter circuits for the portable electronics industry. His background in Physics and Electrical Engineering (both degrees from UC Berkeley) led him to develop an interest in modeling systems of multiple fully-interacting physical phenomena known as Multiphysics. After discovering COMSOL Multiphysics (then called FEMLAB), Brian founded Nifty Analysis and Design with the principle goal of helping innovative companies around the Bay Area with multiphysics analysis in any number of fields.

Brian has expertise in Electro- and Magneto-statics and dynamics, Electromagnetics including RF analysis and design, Lasers, Optics, Microfluidics, Electrokinetic flow, MEMS, fluid-structure interaction, Nonlinear and fully coupled Physics, Finite Element techniques, optimization, feedback and control, signal processing, circuit design / parasitic extraction, and other related fields.

Ben Blake joined Nifty Analysis in 2005 after working in the design of satellite/spacecraft thermal subsystems at The Aerospace Corporation. His professional experience includes modeling and analysis of thermal/fluid systems, hardware testing, and independent design review. Ben has also worked on contamination control technologies for hard disks with Seagate Technology. He earned an M.S in mechanical engineering at UCLA specializing in fluids and heat transfer and holds a B.S. from U.C. Berkeley also in mechanical engineering. While at UCLA, Ben worked with Dr. Ivan Catton on simulation of a composite material heat exchanger, and assisted in the testing and development of a method to measure temperature and pressure of air using oxygen fluorescence. Ben's peer-reviewed publications include both experimental and numerical work.