contact

Office No. 121
School of Computer Science
University of Birmingham
Birmingham B15 2TT
United Kingdom
email: p...@cs.bham.ac.uk

education

PhD candidate, Computer Science, University of Birmingham, U.K., 2017 - expected 2020.
BEng Hons, Software Engineering, University of Sheffield, U.K., 2013-2016.
Foundation year, Science and Engineering, University of Sheffield International College, U.K., 2013.

research interests

My research interests are in Black-Box Optimisation, Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Intelligence. I am currently working on the class of model-based algorithms, i.e. Estimation of Distribution Algorithms, which iteratively update a probability distribution defined on a search space in order to optimise an objective function. The algorithm iteratively fits a probability distribution to a batch of elite individuals in the population using Maximum Likelihood.

My primary supervisor is Dr. Per Kristian Lehre, and my secondary supervisor is Prof. Xin Yao. My thesis group members are Prof. Jon Rowe and Prof. Ata Kaban (RSMG rep).

publications

Conference Papers

(2019) On the Limitations of the Univariate Marginal Distribution Algorithm to Deception and Where Bivariate EDAs might help (with Per Kristian Lehre). Proceedings of the 15th ACM/SIGEVO Workshop on Foundations of Genetic Algorithms (FOGA XV), ACM, Potsdam, Germany. (acm | arXiv | pdf)

(2019) Runtime Analysis of the Univariate Marginal Distribution Algorithm under Low Selective Pressure and Prior Noise (with Per Kristian Lehre). Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2019), ACM, Prague, Czech Republic. ( acm | arXiv | pdf)

(2018) Level-Based Analysis of the Population-Based Incremental Learning Algorithm (with Per Kristian Lehre). Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN 2018), Springer, Coimbra, Portugal. (LNCS | arXiv | pdf)

(2018) Memetic Algorithms Beat Evolutionary Algorithms on Class of Hurdle Problems (with Dirk Sudholt). Proceedings of the 2018 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO '18), ACM, Kyoto, Japan. (acm | arXiv | pdf)

(2017) Improved Runtime Bounds for the Univariate Marginal Distribution Algorithm via Anti-Concentration (with Per Kristian Lehre), Proceedings of the 2017 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO '17), ACM, Berlin, Germany. (acm | arXiv | pdf)

Journal Papers

(2018) Level-Based Analysis of the Univariate Marginal Distribution Algorithm (with Per Kristian Lehre and Duc-Cuong Dang), Algorithmica Journal, Springer. (Springer | arXiv | pdf)

(2019) Memetic Algorithms Outperform Evolutionary Algorithms in Multimodal Optimisation (with Dirk Sudholt). Artificial Intelligence Journal, Elsevier. (Elsevier |arXiv | pdf)

Manuscripts (under review)

teaching

Term	Module	University	Lecturer(s)
Autumn 2019-20	Neural Computation	University of Birmingham	Per Kristian Lehre
Autumn 2019-20	MSc/ICY Software Workshop	University of Birmingham	Manfred Kerber Uday S Reddy
Spring 2019	Team Project	University of Birmingham	Ian Kenny
Autumn 2018	Software Engineering 1	University of Birmingham	Morteza Azad
Autumn 2017	Neural Computation	University of Birmingham	Per Kristian Lehre
Academic year 2017-18	MSc/ICY Software Workshop	University of Birmingham	Manfred Kerber Uday S Reddy
Summer 2017	English for Academic Purposes (10 weeks)	Birmingham International Academy	Diana Quigley
Autumn 2016	Programming and Algorithms	University of Nottingham	Per Kristian Lehre Jamie Twycross
Autumn 2016	Algorithms Correctness and Efficiency	University of Nottingham	B Logan A Parkes
Academic Year 15/16	Pure and Applied Mathematics	University of Sheffield International College	Florin Stan

talks

Date	Title	Seminar	Location
June 26, 2017	Improved runtime bound for the Univariate Marginal Distribution Algorithm via Anti-concentration (pdf)	AINC Seminar	School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham
July 18, 2017	Improved runtime bound for the Univariate Marginal Distribution Algorithm via Anti-concentration (pdf)	Theory track	Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO'17), Berlin.
July 24, 2017	Improved runtime bound for the Univariate Marginal Distribution Algorithm via Anti-concentration (pdf)		Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield

activities

• I'm current taking an authorised absence from the university until 01 Mar 2020 for doing an internship in Machine Learning (for financial services) in London.
• (14 Sept 2019) My paper with Dirk has been accepted for publication on the Elsevier Artificial Intelligence Journal.
• (27 - 29 August 2019) I attend the FOGA XV conference in Potsdam, Germany.
• (13 -17 June 2019) I attend the GECCO 2019 Conference in Prague, Czech Republic.
• (22 June - 17 August 2019) I am taking a summer research internship in Berlin, working on a railway project with the Deutsche Bahn Railway Company and the Zuse Institute at Freie University of Berlin.
• (6 June 2019) My paper with Per Kristian has been accepted to publish at FOGA 2019.
• (21 March 2019) My paper with Per Kristian has been accepted to publish at GECCO 2019.
• (Feb/Mar 2019) Reviewer for GECCO '19 (theory track) and CEC '19
• (8-13 Sept 2018) I attended the PPSN Conference in Coimbra, Portugal.
• (12-24 July 2018) I attended the GECCO'18 conference in Kyoto, Japan.
• (16 July 2018) our paper on UMDA with Per Kristian and Duc-Cuong has been accepted to publish in Algorithmica journal.
• (14 May 2018) My paper on PBIL with Per Kristian has been accepted for publication at PPSN 2018. The paper is now available in author-prepared manuscript
• (18 Apr 2018) My paper on MA with Dirk Sudholt is now available on arXiv.org.
• (04 Apr 2018) Reviewer for the PPSN 2018 conference, September 2018, Coimbra, Portugal.
• (22 Mar 2018) The paper with my former supervisor, Dr. Dirk Sudholt (from Sheffield), titled "MAs outperform EAs on Hurdle problems" has been acepted for GECCO 2018, Kyoto, Japan.
• (10 Feb 2018) Reviewer in the track Theory of the GECCO 2018 conference, 15-19 July, Kyoto, Japan.
• (02 Feb 2018) My paper for UMDA on OneMax is now available on arXiv.org
• (09 Oct 2017) I gave a talk on IGO to "mini" Evolutionary and Neural Computation seminar.
• (14/20-21 July 2017) I attended the SigEVO Summer School in Berlin, Germany.
• (15-19 July 2017) I attended the GECCO'17 conference in Berlin, Germany.
• (08 Jan 2017) I transferred my PhD study to the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.
• (26 Sept 2016) I started my PhD study at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.
• (19 July 2016) I graduated from the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.