ANDERS YNNERMAN

BIOGRAPHY

Professor Ynnerman is currently the head of the Media and Information Technology division at the department of Science and Technology (ITN) at Linköping University and is the director of the Norrköping Visualization Center C. He is also the director of the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP). Ynnerman plays a leading role on the international visualization arena and is a frequently invited speaker at international conferences and other events.

During his career Anders Ynnerman has held several key academic leadership positions. In 1996 he founded the National Graduate School in Scientific Computing (NGSSC) with funding from the Foundation for Strategic Research. He directed NGSSC until 1999. In 1998 Ynnerman was appointed director of the National Supercomputer Centre (NSC), which is a focal point for high performance computing in Sweden. Under his leadership NSC expanded rapidly and became the largest center for HPC in Sweden and took a lead as a technology transfer site in the area of cluster computing. NSC also deepened and expanded its collaboration with Saab AB and the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) during his time as director.

In 2002 Ynnerman proposed the formation of the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC), which is a metacenter involving the six major academic HPC centers in Sweden, including NSC. He was then appointed director of SNIC, and under his leadership significant additional funding from private sources, such as the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation, was obtained, effectively doubling the annual budget for Swedish HPC. He also represented Sweden and the Nordic region in several EU-projects and international committees. Through SNIC Sweden gained an important place in the European development of HPC and Grid computing. Ynnerman directed SNIC until 2006 and served as chair of the SNIC strategic advisory committee 2006–2009.

In 2001 and in collaboration with Sectra AB and colleagues at the University Hospital in Linköping, Ynnerman founded the Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV), which has been selected as one of the strategic areas for LiU. Until 2015 he served as chair of the scientific advisory board of CMIV.

In 2000 Ynnerman founded the Norrköping Visualization Studio (NVIS), which from its inception constituted the leading laboratory for visualization and virtual reality in Sweden. NVIS has generated spin-off companies in visualization and physical simulation for computer graphics. The Norrköping Visualization Center is based on the success of NVIS, and Ynnerman is the director of the center, which builds on a collaboration between Linköping University, Norrköping Municipality, Norrköping Science Park and the Interactive Institute. The center hosts a large scale visualization arena with several visualization environments, including a dome theatre, and exhibit areas for the general public. The center was opened in May 2010 and constitutes a focal point for Visualization in Northern Europe.

The Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP) was initiated in 2015 and is planned to operate until 2030. Ynnerman has been engaged in the program since its inception and in 2020 he was appointed director. With a total budgetof 5.5 BSEK WASP is by far the largest research program in Sweden. 

Ynnerman has chaired and hosted several international conferences including EuroVis 2007 and Eurographics 2010, the largest conferences in visualisation and computer graphics in Europe. He also charied the virtual conference EGEV 2020. He served as the chair of the the Eurographics association 2014–2016 and he was the chair of the Eurographics working group on Data Visualization and the chairman of the EuroVis steering committee until 2020.  In 2021 and 2022 he is serving as overall papers chair for IEEE VIS.