Hans-Christian Hege is head of the Visualization and Data Analysis Department at Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB). After studying physics and mathematics, he performed research in computational physics and quantum field theory at Freie Universität Berlin (1984-1989). Then, he joined ZIB, initially as a scientific consultant for high-performance computing, and then as head of the Scientific Visualization Department, which he started in 1991. His group performs research in visual data analysis and develops visualization software such as Amira and Biosphere3D. He is also the co-founder of Mental Images (1986) (now: NVIDIA Advanced Rendering Center), Indeed-Visual Concepts (1999) (now Visage Imaging), and Lenné3D (2005).
He taught as a guest professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, and as honorary professor at the German Film School (University for Digital Media Production). His research interests include many branches in visual computing as well as applications in life sciences, natural sciences and engineering.
He is a member of ACM, IEEE, Eurographics, GI, DPG and CURAC.