DANIE LUDICK

Danie matriculated in 2003 from Jan van Riebeeck High school in Cape Town. He received distinctions in Afrikaans, English (both first language), Science, Computer Science, Geography and Mathematics (all high-grade). He graduated in 2007 from Stellenbosch University with a B.Eng. (Cum Laude) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering with additional Computer Science subjects. In 2009 he completed his MScEng (Cum Laude) from the same institution. During the course of his studies, Danie received distinctions in 43 out of 44 undergraduate modules, including his final year project entitled Focal Plane antennas for the Square Kilometer Array. For this, he was nominated as one of four finalists in the 2007 M-Net Jak van der Merwe Competition for Innovation.

For his MScEng, Danie focused on the development of a focal plane array feed-structure for parabolic dish reflector antennas for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) and the Karoo Array Telescope (KAT). A part of this research was presented at the International Conference on Electromagnetics in Advanced Applications (ICEAA) in Torino, Italy in September 2009.

During his post-graduate studies, Danie formed part of the computational electromagnetic (CEM) research group of Stellenbosch University (CEMAGG) under the leadership of Prof. D.B. Davidson.

Currently, Danie forms part of the development team for the CEM software package FEKO the flag-ship project of EM Software & Systems-S.A. (Pty) Ltd, based in Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Danie's interests include electromagnetic modelling, high performance computing (HPC), parallel programming, antenna design and energy efficiency. Danie is married to Sunel Ludick and together they reside in Somerset West, South Africa. He is also a keen mountain biker, trail-runner and golfer.