Thomas Ertl received a masters degree in computer science from the
University of Colorado at Boulder and a PhD in theoretical
astrophysics from the University of Tuebingen. Currently, Dr. Ertl is
a full professor of computer science at the University of Stuttgart,
Germany and the head of the Visualization and Interactive Systems
Institute (VIS)and the Visualization Research Center of the University
of Stuttgart (VISUS). Prior to that he was a professor of computer
graphics and visualization at the University of Erlangen where he lead
the scientific visualization group. Besides that, he is a cofounder
and a member of the board of science+computing ag, a Tuebingen based
IT company.  His research interests include visualization, computer
graphics and human computer interaction in general with a focus on
volume rendering, flow visualization, multiresolution analysis,
parallel and hardware accelerated graphics, large datasets and
interactive steering, visual analytics of patent data, user interfaces
and navigation systems for the blind.  Dr. Ertl is coauthor of more
than 300 scientific publications and he served as a reviewer for most
of the conferences and journals in the field. He has been a member of
many program committees (e.g. SIGGRAPH, Eurographics) and a papers
co-chair for several conferences (e.g. IEEE Visualization, EG/IEEE
EuroVIS, Volume Graphics).  Since 2007 Dr. Ertl is Editor-in-Chief of
the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Graphics and Vice President
of the Eurographics Association. He received the Outstanding Technical
Contribution Award of the Eurographics Association and the Technical
Achievement Award of the IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical
Committee in 2006 and he was elected as a Member of the Heidelberg
Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2007.