Older News (I'm using Twitter for news newer than November 2019)
- [15 November 2019] Hasso Plattner Institute, FSOC Lab project approved: Designing practical algorithms through overfitting
- [17 October 2019] Times Higher Education World University Rankings: 120 (up from 135), computer science 96
- [16 October 2019] PGMO Days 2019: talk "An Improved Generic Bet-and-Run Strategy with Performance Prediction for Stochastic Local Search" accepted, slides used
- [8 October 2019] COST Action Training School, this year 25th-29th November 2019 in Coimbra, Portugal: I'm a lecturer
- [3 October 2019] IEEE Task Force on Automated Algorithm Design, Configuration and Selection (AADCS): I've become accepted the invitation to become a member
- [2 October 2019] Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center: proposal passed stage 1
- [25 September 2019] CRC Transitions in Mining Economies: successfully moved to Stage 2 of the application process
- [16 September 2019] OptLog is now a "network member" of the "ICT-48 RIA proposal on the Foundations of Trustworthy AI - Integrating Learning, Reasoning and Optimization", with me as the point-of-contact.
- [15 September 2019] ICONIP 2019 paper accepted (CORE A): Adaptive Neuro-Surrogate-Based Optimization Method for Wave Energy Converters Placement Optimization
- [12 September 2019] Times Higher Education World University Rankings: now at 120 (was 135)
- [9-19 September 2019] Harbin Institute of Technology: I've taught "Evolutionary Computation" as an intensive course over two weeks
- [27 August 2019] $12.5m ARC Training Centre announced, news
- [26 August 2019] ECMS Connect: Riding the Renewable Energy Wave
- [20 August 2019] Listed at Tethys (U.S. Department of Energy): Optimizing the Wave Energy Converters by Metaheuristic Methods
- [20 August 2019] Configuration and Selection of Algorithms Workshop 2019: paper and poster online
- [17 July 2019] GECCO 2019 Best Paper Award for "A Hybrid Evolutionary Algorithm Framework for Optimising Power Take Off and Placements of Wave Energy Converters" (Neshat, Alexander, Sergiienko, Wagner) (project page with code and documents) best of 87 submissions in the RWA track
- [15 July 2019] elected to be SIGEVO's first ever Sustainability Officer
- [10 July 2019] New technical report: Adaptive Neuro-Surrogate-Based Optimisation Method for Wave Energy Converters Placement Optimisation
- [8 July 2019] BRACIS 2019 paper accepted: On updating probabilistic graphical models in a Bayesian Optimisation Algorithm
- [3 July 2019] Panel discussion member on Benchmarking at BB-DOB 2019
- [6 June 2019] FOGA 2019 paper accepted (CORE A*): Evolving Diverse TSP Instances by Means of Novel and Creative Mutation Operators, code
- [4 June 2019] GECCO 2019, two Best Paper Nominations!! Tracks: GA and RWA, list
- [30 May 2019] GECCO 2019, invited speaker at Evolutionary Computation in Practice (ECiP)
- [17 May 2019] CRC: Achieving Sustainable Mine Closure (www) bid by the University of Adelaide submitted to lead the project, with me as a Program Lead
- [18 April 2019] GECCO 2019 Workshops: 4 papers accepted!!!! 3x Genetic Improvement of Software (GI), 1x Black Box Discrete Optimization Benchmarking (BB-DOB)
- [13 April 2019] Hasso Plattner Institute, FSOC Lab project approved: Overfitting on purpose to design new algorithms
- [10 April 2019] Australia-China Joint Research Centre of Offshore Wind and Wave Energy Harnessing funded, with Shanghai Jiao Tonag University and others
- [21 March 2019] GECCO 2019 (CORE A, 35% acceptance rate): 4 full papers accepted!!!! Tracks: 1x ECOM, 1x GA, 1x GP, 1x RWA
- [8 March 2019] CEC 2019 paper accepted (CORE B): Mind the gap - a distributed framework for enabling energy optimisation on modern smart-phones in the presence of noise, drift, and statistical insignificance
- [2 March 2019] MSR 2019 paper accepted (CORE A, 25% acceptance rate): Predicting Good Configurations for GitHub and Stack Overflow Topic Models
- [18 February 2019] CEC 2019 Tutorial accepted: Genetic Improvement of Software
- [7 February 2019] Currently under review: 1x EMSE, 1x TEVC, 1x MSR, 2x CEC, 5x GECCO
Co-Organised Activities
- ACM SIGEVO Executive Committee Member (2019-2025, election outcome)
- Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computational Intelligence 2019
- GECCO 2020 Competitions Chair
- GECCO 2019 Competitions Chair
- Genetic Improvement of Software Workshop at GECCO 2019
- Special Session on Benchmarking of Evolutionary Algorithms For Discrete Optimisation at CEC 2019
- Special Session on Evolutionary Algorithms for Complex Optimization in the Energy Domain at CEC 2019
- Evolutionary Computation in Uncertain Environments: A Smart Grid Application at CEC 2019 (Competition)
- Bi-Objective Travelling Thief Problem Competition: EMO 2019, GECCO 2019 (successfully used in teaching at the Hasso-Plattner-Institute)
- Special Issue on Benchmarking of Computational Intelligence Algorithms in the Applied Soft Computing Journal
Open-Source Software Projects
- GIN - Genetic Improvement in No Time -- version 2.0 released on 13 June 2019!
- ICONIC - predictive modelling using genetic programming
- NEODYNAMICA - a symbolic regression application building on Jenetics
- TOYlib - a library on data sets for collectibles, tech report
Mass-Scale Education
- Introduction to Computational Intelligence: Open Book on GitHub.io (intro page), GitHub.com (repo)
- Search-Based Software Engineering GitHub version
- edX MOOC Computational Thinking and Big Data: course website, MicroMasters, Testimonial
- Reddit on free Computational Intelligence Courses: https://www.reddit.com/r/CompIntellCourses/
Selected older news from 2018-2016
- [6 December 2018] New technical report: Better Software Analytics via "DUO": Data Mining Algorithms Using/Used-by Optimizers
- [1 November 2018] AAAI 2019 (CORE A*, 16% acceptance rate): 1 full paper accepted!
- [11 September 2018] MOBIQUITOUS 2018 (CORE A, 39% acceptance rate): 1 full paper accepted!
- [30 August 2018] EU COST Action, Industry Day, Panel Discussion Lead
- [18 July 2018] School of Computer Science ranked 43 in the Shanghai Ranking
- [26 June 2018] New technical report: An Improved Generic Bet-and-Run Strategy for Speeding Up Stochastic Local Search
- [15 May 2018] PPSN 2018 (CORE A, 39% acceptance rate): 3 full papers accepted!!!
- [16 April 2018] New technical report: Per-Corpus Configuration of Topic Modelling for GitHub and Stack Overflow Collections
- [24 March 2018] GECCO 2018 (CORE A, 38% acceptance rate): 6 full papers accepted!!!!!! Tracks: 2x ECOM, 1x EMO, 2x GA, 1x RWA
- [2 March 2018] Data-Driven Search-Based Software Engineering vision paper on arXiv, accepted at Mining Software Repositories (CORE A, 33% acc rate), repository
- [15 February 2018] New technical reports
- [1 February 2018] Data-Driven Search-Based Software Engineering (vision paper on arXiv)
- [8 December 2017] Information Sciences paper accepted
- [26 October 2017] Hefei University, China: seminar, slides on Android energy consumption, slides on wave energy, News Post at Hefei University (with photo)
- [25 October 2017] Anhui University, China: Symposium on Evolutionary Computation, slides on Approximation-Guided Evolution and on the Travelling Thief Problem, News Post at Hefei University (with photos)
- [7 October 2017] Special Issue Benchmarking of Computational Intelligence Algorithms at Computational Intelligence Journal (Wiley) accepted
- [20 September 2017] Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology paper accepted
- [18 September 2017] PRIF RCP granted ($14.6million total budget), Unlocking Complex Resources through Lean Processing
- [1 September 2017] CSIRO ON Tribe Forum 2017 approved, flights and accommodation paid
- [23 August 2017] YSEP participation in Oct/Nov 2017 approved, Australia-China Young Scientists Exchange Program (two weeks fully funded networking program in Beijing, Hefei, and Shanghai, News Post at Hefei University, post by CSTEC, post by CISTC
- [16 July 2017] SEAL 2017 paper accepted, Exact Approaches for the Travelling Thief Problem
- [5 July 2017] Journal Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines paper accepted, A Hyperheuristic Approach based on Low-Level Heuristics for the Travelling Thief Problem
- [15 June 2017] Many-Objective Optimisation Competition results: our AGE/AGEII achieved 3rd place (7 competitors)
- [14 April 2017] GI@GECCO 2017 paper accepted, Deep Parameter Optimisation on Android Smartphones for Energy Minimisation - A Tale of Woe and a Proof-of-Concept
- [20 March 2017] GECCO 2017 paper accepted, Theoretical results on bet-and-run as an initialisation strategy
- [20 March 2017] GECCO 2017 paper accepted, HSEDA: A Heuristic Selection Approach Based on Estimation of Distribution Algorithm for the Travelling Thief Problem
- [20 March 2017] GECCO 2017 poster accepted, A Case Study of Multi-objectiveness in Multi-component Problems
- [7 March 2017] CEC 2017 paper accepted, Improving local search in a minimum vertex cover solver for classes of networks
- [7 March 2017] CEC 2017 paper accepted, A Modified Indicator-based Evolutionary Algorithm (mIBEA)
- [6 March 2017] Journal of Heuristics paper accepted, A case study of algorithm selection for the traveling thief problem
- [17 February 2017] IWWWFB 2017 paper accepted, Study of fully submerged point absorber wave energy converter - modelling, simulation and scaled experiment
- [12 February 2017] LION 2017 paper accepted, Learning a Reactive Restart Strategy to Improve Stochastic Search (2x strong accept)
- [4 December 2016] Competition proposal accepted, "Optimisation of Problems with Multiple Interdependent Components" at GECCO 2017
- [4 December 2016] Workshop proposal accepted, "Evolutionary Methods for Smart Grid Applications" at GECCO 2017
- [5 September 2016] Promotion to Senior Lecturer, effective 1 January 2017
- [2 September 2016] Faculty ECMS Interdisciplinary Research Grant for
“Nonlinear modelling of fully submerged wave energy converters for high fidelity yet computationally efficient numerival analysis and prototype design”
with Dr. Boyin Ding, Dr. Javad Farrokhi Derakhshandeh, Dr. Markus Wagner, Dr. Luke Bennetts, Prof. Benjamin Cazzolato, A/Prof. Maziar Arjomandi, Prof. Frank Neumann, and Prof. Gus Nathan ($18,025)
- [24 August 2016] Successful NII Shonan Meeting proposal, topic "Data-Driven Search-Based Software Engineering 2017", organisers: Markus Wagner, Leandro Minku, Ahmed E. Hassan, John Clark
- [19 August 2016] ECMS Professional Development Grant for supporting a research stay at the University College London and attending an invitation-only Dagstuhl Seminar ($4,700)
- [13 August 2016] Invited Lecturer at the 5th International Optimisation Summer School in Kioloa, Australia in January 2017 PPTX, PDF
- [25 July 2016] Priority Partner Grant for enhancing the relationship with the University of Nottingham ($5,000)
- [20 July 2016] Best Presentation Award for "Optimising Energy Consumption Heuristically on Android Mobile Phones" at Genetic Improvement @ GECCO 2016
- [07 July 2016] MaxSAT 2016 Competition Results: my solver SC2016 achieved 1x First Place, 3x Second Place, 4x Third Place (17 competitors)
Recent service to the community
- Black-Box Discrete Optimization Benchmarking (BB-DOB) Workshops GECCO 2018, PPSN 2018
- Genetic Improvement of Software Workshop GI@GECCO
- PPSN 2018 Workshop Investigating Optimization Problems from Machine Learning and Data Analysis
- Adelaide Autumn School on Software Engineering 17/18 May 2018
- General Chair Australasian Conference on Artificial Life and Computational Intelligence (ACALCI 2018)
- Co-Chair International Workshop on Benchmarking of Computational Intelligence Algorithms (BOCIA)
- Competitions Chair GECCO 2018
- Program Chair Australasian Conference on Artificial Life and Computational Intelligence (ACALCI 2017)
- Workshop Chair GECCO 2017
- Chair IEEE CIS University Curricula 2017
- Associate Editor of Frontiers in Applied Mathematics and Statistics
Resume
- since 01/2023: Associate Professor at the
Department of Data Science and AI, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
- since 01/2023: Adjunct Associate Professor at the
School of Computer Science and Mathematical Sciences, University of Adelaide, Australia
- since 07/2020: Visiting Professor at the National Pilot School of Software, at the Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, China
- 02/2022-07/2022: Acting Head of School at the
School of Computer Science and Mathematical Sciences, University of Adelaide, Australia
- 01/2021-12/2022: Associate Professor at the
School of Computer Science, University of Adelaide, Australia
- 01/2017-12/2020: Senior Lecturer at the
School of Computer Science, University of Adelaide, Australia
- 01/2016 - 12/2018: ARC DECRA Fellow "Dynamic adaptive software configuration", DE160100850, publications linked to this project:
GoogleScholar search,
ARC DECRA
- since 08/2015: Scientific Advisor at
Complexica
- 03/2013 - 12/2016: Lecturer at the
School of Computer Science, University of Adelaide, Australia
- 2013: PhD in Computer Science from the
University of Adelaide, Australia (awarded the 1st
University Doctoral Research Medal for Computer Science)
- 02/2011 - 05/2013: PhD student at the
School of Computer Science, University of Adelaide, Australia
- 04/2010 - 01/2011: PhD student at the
Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Department 1: Algorithms and Complexity, Saarbrücken
- 2009: Diplom in Computer Science (focus: Theoretical Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence) from the
University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany
- 08/2006 - 05/2007: exchange student at the
Institute for Artificial Intelligence, University of Georgia, USA
- PDF version:
02 August 2023
Media
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openHPI lists the windfarm project as a showcase project (10/2019)
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CIS University Curricula Subcommittee intends to build up a collection of links to good quality courses on "everything CI" (10/2017)
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Unlocking Complex Resources through Lean Processing (09/2017)
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Adelaide Team Wins CSIRO On-Prime Performance Bonus (06/2017)
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Interdisciplinary Wave Energy Research with Coursework Students (05/2017)
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Dagstuhl Seminar 16412 Automated Algorithm Selection and Configuration, October 2016 (
report)
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NII Shonan Computational Intelligence for Software Engineering, October 2014
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2013-2014 International Postgraduate Research Prospectus
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Dagstuhl Seminar 13272 Computer Science in High Performance Sport - Applications and Implications for Professional Coaching, June 2013 (
report)
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1 Jahr Future SOC Lab (video about cooperation with the Hasso-Plattner-Institut) watch from 1:50min on... (
online at HPI)
