Dr. Thomas Hermann studied physics at Bielefeld University. From 1998 to 2001 he was a member of the interdisciplinary Graduate Program "Task-oriented Communication". He started the research on sonification and auditory display in the Neuroinformatics Group and received a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2002 from Bielefeld University (thesis: Sonification for Exploratory Data Analysis). After research stays at the Bell Labs (NJ, USA, 2000) and GIST (Glasgow University, UK, 2004) and McGill University (Montreal, 2008), he is currently assistant professor (German C1 position) and head of the Ambient Intelligence Group within the Center of Excellence in Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), Bielefeld University. His research focus is sonification, datamining, human-computer interaction and cognitive interaction technology.
Thomas Hermann serves as member of the ICAD Board of Directors and is German delegate for both the EU COST Actions 287 (ConGAS, Gesture-controlled Audio Systems) and IC0601 (SID, Sonic Interaction Design). Thomas Hermann is vice-chair of the COST Action SID and Working Group Leader of the WG Sonification therein. He is member of the Scientific Board of CITEC. He is initiator and organizer of the International Workshops on Interactive Sonification and guest editor of an IEEE Multimedia Special Issue on Interactive Sonification.
In his research, Thomas Hermann is developing techniques for interactive multimodal data representation and exploratory analysis of high-dimensional data with a particular focus on sonification, novel interactive data mining techniques and human-computer interaction. His research topics include furthermore Tangible Computing, Ambient Information Systems, Gestural Interactions and Augmented Reality.
One of Thomas Hermann's central interests is to create more intuitive and more natural bridges between humans and machines, leading towards a holistic and highly interactive experience of complex data, and to bring novel techniques in this context to applications that support a positive (humanitarian) purpose. Examples for currently followed projects are the sonification of EEG data to improve the diagnosis of epilepsy, and the development of interactive sonification systems for blind users.
