Nikolaus obtained a degree in Electrical Engineering from ETH Zurich in 2003 with visits at Lund Tekniska Hogskola, Sweden, and Caltech, and earned a PhD in Computer Science from EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2007. He did a post-doc at MIT CSAIL from 2007 – 2009. Nikolaus is the recipient of a 2012 NSF CAREER award and a 2012 NASA Early Career Faculty Fellowship.