Thomas Bäck wint IEEE Award
Thomas Bäck wins the 2015 IEEE CIS Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award for his contributions in synthesizing evolutionary computation.
This award is a recognition of his pioneering research done in the early ninetees on developing a unifying algorithmic and theoretical framework for genetic algorithms, evolution strategies, and evolutionary programming. This framework allowed, for the first time, to systematically compare these algorithms and their components. The generic algorithm was called ‘ž evolutionary algorithm‘œ, which later on turned into ‘ževolutionary computation‘œ as a name for this field of research. This was published in his book Evolutionary Algorithms in Theory and Practice (Oxford University Press, NY, 1996).
The IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award recognizes significant contributions to early concepts and sustained developments in the field of evolutionary computation. The selection committee consisted of seven leading scientists in the field.
Evolutionary algorithms are used today for optimizing all types of products and processes, ranging from automotive development to logistics and supply chain applications. Thomas Bäck has contributed to their understanding and therefore to improving their suitability for those applications.