About
My research revolves mainly around the development of rather general-purpose “rules of thumb” or algorithms for solving problems (especially optimization and decision problems) known as metaheuristics. This topic cuts across a number of fields
because it relates to formal algorithms studied in computer science, to human behaviours studied in game theory and behavioural economics, and to seemingly intelligent systems and phenomena that emerge in nature, not least through evolution by natural selection ... More
My research pages provide details of several past and present projects.
Qualifications
BSc (Hons); PGCE; MSc (Dist'n); PhD; FHEA
Awards and Fellowships
- ACM SigEvo GECCO Impact Award (2017)
- Outstanding IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation Paper Award (2006)
- BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship (2002-2008)
- FNRS Chargé de Recherche (Fellowship of the Belgian National
Science Fund) (declined 2003)
- Outstanding IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation Paper Award (2003)
- EC Marie Curie Posdoctoral Fellowship (2001-2003)
Industrial Collaboration
My PhD was sponsored by BT.
Other projects were carried out with Invenia Labs, HBOS, IBM, BioPharm,
Waters, Thermo Instruments, and Combimatrix.
I did a sabbatical at Theo Chocolate, Seattle and The University of Washington in 2009.
Grant Income
Latest funding:
- European Commission, Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellowship: MSC-IF-EF-ST "ACTING-NOW" 704330 Krzysztof Michalak (Fellow) / Joshua Knowles (Host / PI). Algorithmic Containment of Threats in Graphs, Networks, Webs.
- EPSRC institutional fund: Achieving the earliest diagnosis of Cancer through a cascaded
computational decision support system (co-I)
- EPSRC institutional (Manchester): Constrained global optimization for fragment-assembly approaches to
protein structure prediction (co-I)
Previous funding:
- BB/I023755/1 MUSCLE: Multi-platform Unbiased optimization of Spectrometry via Closed-Loop
Experimentation (PI)
- BB/C008219/1 MCISB: The Manchester Centre for Integrative Systems Biology (co-I)
- BBS/A/00013 BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship: Interactive evolutionary search for post-genomic
knowledge discovery and prediction using GRID computing (PI)
- BB/C007158/1 Constrained optimisation of metabolic and signalling pathway models: towards an understanding of the language of cells (co-I)
- BB/C519038/1 HUSERMET: The human serum metabolome in health and
disease (co-I)
- EP/D013615/1 A convergent strategy for high efficiency quantitative
proteomics (co-I)
People
We (i.e. my students and I) have (or have had) collaborations with the following people -- with my apologies for
any omissions.
- David Corne (Heriot-Watt)
- Julia Handl (Manchester Business School, UoM)
- Douglas Kell (Manchester Institute for Biotechnology, UoM)
- Richard Allmendinger (UCL)
- Steve O'Hagan (MIB, UoM)
- Ben Stappers (Jodrell Bank, UoM)
- John Brooke (IMG / Research Computing Services, UoM)
- Richard A. Watson (Southampton)
- Carlos Fonseca (U. Coimbra)
- Eckart Zitzler (PH Bern)
- Lothar Thiele (ETH Zurich)
- Manuel Lopez-Ibanez (IRIDIA, Code, Brussels)
- Marco Laumanns (IBM)
- Mark Viant (Biological Sciences, U. Birmingham)
- Warwick Dunn (Biological Sciences, U. Birmingham)
- Shan He (Computer Science, U. Birmingham)
- Robert Synovec (University of Washington, Seattle)
- Andy McShea (Theo Chocolate, Seattle)
- Liz Humston (University of Washington, Seattle)
- Leonora Bianchi (IDSIA)
- Will Rowe (Faculty of Life Sciences, UoM)
- Mark Platt (Loughborough)
- Chris Knight (Faculty of Life Sciences, UoM)
- Philip J. Day (School of Chemistry / MIB, UoM)
- David Wedge (Sanger Institute)
- Martin Brown (Control Systems Centre, EEE, UoM)
- David Brough (Faculty of Life Sciences, UoM)
- Ben Small (Faculty of Life Sciences, UoM)
- Pedro Mendes (School of Computer Science / MIB)
- Nancy Rothwell (Faculty of Life Sciences, UoM)
- Marco Dorigo (IRIDIA, Free University of Brussels)
- Norman Paton (School of Computer Science, UoM)
- Sandra Sampaio (School of Computer Science, UoM)
- Ludi Mikhailov (Manchester Business School, UoM)
- Paul Popelier (School of Chemistry / MIB, UoM)
- Roy Goodacre (School of Chemistry / MIB, UoM)
- Robin Purshouse (Sheffield)
- Shaul Salomon (Sheffield)
- Valentina di Pietro (Medical School, UoB)
- Andrew Peet (Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, UoB)
- Georgios Gkoutos (Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, UoB)
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Research Interests
My research revolves mainly around the development of rather
general-purpose “rules of thumb” or algorithms for solving problems
(especially optimization and decision problems) known as
metaheuristics. This topic cuts across a number of fields because it
relates to formal algorithms studied in computer science, to human
behaviours studied in game theory and behavioural economics, and to
seemingly intelligent systems and phenomena that emerge in nature, not
least through evolution by natural selection. I am interested in all
of these aspects, especially as they are applied to sequential
decision making problems (generalising optimization, reinforcement
learning, adaptive control, cybernetics, the design of experiments and
the automation of human-like creativity in art, engineering and
science). I work almost evenly between fundamentals and
applications. Some of my fundamental work has focused on heuristics
for solving multi-objective problems (i.e., those where trade-offs
exist). My applied work has ranged over theoretical and systems
biology, quantum chemistry, cheminformatics, astrophysics,
telecommunications, and energy.
Keywords
Computer science, AI, optimization, machine learning,
heuristics, metaheuristics, stochastic algorithms, artificial life,
emergence, complexity, edge of chaos, complex adaptive systems,
automation of science, design of experiments, sequential decision
making, statistical learning, Bayesian statistics, game theory, human
innovation, human computer interaction, cooperative systems,
multi-agent systems, ethics of AI.
See my research pages for details of past and present projects (not a complete catalogue).
Current and former positions
I am a principal research scientist at Schlumberger and an honorary professor at the
Alliance Manchester Business School.
From 2020-2022, I was a senior researcher at Invenia Labs, Cambridge and prior
to that I was a professor in the School (2015-9). I spent twelve years at the
University of Manchester, first as a David Phillips Fellow in the Manchester
Institute for Biotechnology, and then as a permanent academic in the School of
Computer Science.
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