Klaas Bom

Nicolaas "Klaas" Bom (1 December 1937 – 4 October 2025) was a Dutch engineer. He was a professor of medical technology in cardiology at the Erasmus MC. His 1970s research on ultrasound technology provided several new medical devices, including the portable ultrasound scanner.

Career Bom was born on 1 December 1937 in Velsen. He was the third of five children. He attended the Hogere Burgerschool in Velsen. Through a university hockey teammate he was brought into contact with the Royal Netherlands Navy Sonarlab. During this time Bom also constructed five machines that would be able to display two-dimensional echo's and subsequently distributed these machines around hospitals worldwide.

Bom also served for ten years as (co)-director of the Interuniversity Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands (ICIN-KNAW), the predecessor to the Netherlands Heart Institute. He retired in 2003. In 2001 Bom was made a Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion.

Personal life From his first marriage Bom had two children. In 1994 he married once again.