PhD Students on Innovating Model-based Evolutionary Algorithms From Algorithmic Foundations to Medical Applications

Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI, the Dutch national research institute for mathematics and computer science) located in Amsterdam, and the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) together have 10 vacancies for fully funded

PhD students,

on innovating model-based evolutionary algorithms from algorithmic foundations to medical applications.

Job description
Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) are metaheuristic search methods. Their underlying concept of improving multiple solutions at once is a powerful one, making them popular for tackling complex optimization and machine-learning problems. EAs are increasingly considered a key ingredient needed to fundamentally advance AI.

The ability to exploit important structural features of a problem can make the difference between obtaining efficient, i.e., low-polynomial, and inefficient, i.e., exponential, scale-up of the time required to find the optimum as problem size increases. At CWI, a dedicated research line exists on the development of state-of-the-art model-based EAs that automatically detect, learn, and incorporate problem structure to achieve superior performance. At the forefront of this research line is the Gene-pool Optimal Mixing Evolutionary Algorithm (GOMEA) that has been shown to be capable of solving single- and multi-objective optimization benchmark problems with millions of variables on ordinary desktop computers.