The VIS 2025 keynote talk will be given by Hans-Christian Hege.
Hans-Christian studied physics and mathematics at the University of Berlin. He was then employed as a research associate at the Institute for the Theory of Elementary Particles at the same university, working in the field of quantum field theory. In 1986, he founded the company Mental Images, where he worked as a leading scientist in software development until 1989. From 1989 to 2020, Hege worked as a scientist at the Zuse-Institute Berlin (ZIB). Hans-Christian was awarded the IEEE VGTC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024.
In his keynote talk “The Science of Visual Insight: Transforming Data Visualization into a Rigorous Discipline”, Hans-Christian will focus on the foundations of data visualization. Data visualization is not yet a fully established science, but rather a practice or discipline based on insights from fields such as computer science, data analysis, design, perception, and cognition. To elevate data visualization to the rank of a science, it needs a philosophical foundation, a scientific core, and a rigorous methodology. His keynote talk will outline some of the gaps that need to be filled in order to achieve this.