Enrique Alba is a professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

at the University of Málaga, Spain (currently seconded to the European Research Center in Brussels).

Overview

Prof. Alba achieved his

Ph.D. degree A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

on designing and analyzing parallel and distributed genetic algorithms, now better known as

neuroevolution Neuroevolution, or neuro-evolution, is a form of artificial intelligence that uses evolutionary algorithms to generate artificial neural networks (ANN), parameters, and rules. It is most commonly applied in artificial life, general game playing ...

. His current research interests involve the design and application of evolutionary algorithms, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, and other bio-inspired systems to real problems including

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...

, combinatorial optimization, and

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...

among others. The main focus of all his work is on parallel metaheuristics (

high-performance computing High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Overview HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a mult ...

in general) and multiobjective optimization to deal with human preferences and conflicting criteria in complex problems. In the last 10 years, Prof. Alba's interests in terms of applications focused on smart cities and AI for

quantum computing Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Though ...

Work

Prof. Alba leads th
NEO
(Networking and Emerging Optimization) group at the University of Málaga, Spain. His ongoing research includes the fields of ad hoc metropolitan network optimization, optimal design of GSM networks,

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

, vehicle routing,

natural language In neuropsychology, linguistics, and philosophy of language, a natural language or ordinary language is any language that has evolved naturally in humans through use and repetition without conscious planning or premeditation. Natural languages ...

tagging,

, DNA fragment assembly, gene microarrays, cutting/packing,

software testing Software testing is the act of examining the artifacts and the behavior of the software under test by validation and verification. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to apprecia ...

and validation, and in general combinatorial problems lying in the base of real-world problems. New fields like multiobjective techniques with high scalability, grid/P2P/Internet platforms, dynamic optimization of problems whose definition change in time, and heterogeneous algorithms are dealt with as part both of basic and applied research. He has been involved in many projects and Ph.D. theses dealing with the construction and utilization of

vehicular ad hoc network Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are created by applying the principles of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) – the spontaneous creation of a wireless network of mobile devices – to the domain of vehicles. VANETs were first mentioned and introd ...

s, as well as has started a whole line of research in

Bio-inspired Bioinspiration is the development of novel materials, devices, and structures inspired by solutions found in biological evolution and refinement which has occurred over millions of years. The goal is to improve modeling and simulation of the biolog ...

techniques, and

metaheuristics In computer science and mathematical optimization, a metaheuristic is a higher-level procedure or heuristic designed to find, generate, or select a heuristic (partial search algorithm) that may provide a sufficiently good solution to an optimiza ...

for smart cities and AI for

. As for the science behind the applications, Prof. Alba and his group are dealing mainly with

, either bio-inspired or not, and also hybridization with other (possibly exact) methods. Specifically, genetic algorithms, particle swarm,

ant colonies An ant colony is a population of a single ant species capable to maintain its complete lifecycle. Ant colonies are eusocial, communal, and division of labor, efficiently organized and are very much like those found in other social Hymenoptera ...

, simulated annealing, branch and bound,

differential evolution In evolutionary computation, differential evolution (DE) is a method that optimizes a problem by iteratively trying to improve a candidate solution with regard to a given measure of quality. Such methods are commonly known as metaheuristics as ...

, variable neighbourhood search, and related solvers are used. The link to machine learning for feature selection, prediction, prescription, and the theory behind the design and complexity of algorithms has led to numerious publications in top venues, international projects, and industry contracts (se
here
for more info). Prof. Alba has published seven books on metaheuristics and bio-inspired techniques, more than 130 papers indexed in ISI impact journals, and more than 300 conference papers. He has raised funds and coordinated several Spanish national research projects like TRACER, OPLINK, M*, DIRICOM, roadME, moveON, 6city, HUMOVE, ECO-IOT. His work has achieved internationalization via his participation in bilateral projects with INRIA like PERFOM, MOID, Robust&Green, and European CELTIC projects like CARLINK, FP7 COADVISE, fiQare, and TAILOR. He holds active collaborations by joining publications and exchanges with more than 20 international universities and labs, and his research in Málaga is also innovating with industrial transferences to several companies including TARTEC S.A., OPTIMI, Arelance, NOVASOFT, ETRA I+D, Moviquity, VTT, Synergiums, EMERGYA, SECMOTIC, ACTECO, EUROSOTERRADOS, TORCAL, JUMA and others. Prof. Alba has also led the one-million lab 6sim for harnessing modern GPUs in the fields of AI and Simulation. Alba works in the program committee of leading conferences in several fields, including

ACM ACM or A.C.M. may refer to: Aviation * AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile * Air chief marshal * Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting * Air cycle machine * Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia Computing * ...

GECCO The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) is the premier conference in the area of Evolutionary computation, genetic and evolutionary computation. GECCO has been held every year since 1999, when it was first established as a reco ...

, IEEE CEC, PPSN,

EvoStar EvoStar, or Evo*, is an international scientific event devoted to evolutionary computation held in Europe. Its structure has evolved over time and it currently comprises four conferences: EuroGP the annual conference on Genetic Programming, EvoA ...

, IPDPS, as well as organizing international events frequently. He also has worked as a reviewer for the IEEE Transactions Journals on Evolutionary Computation, Education, and Parallel and Distributed Systems. Besides, he is an active reviewer for SMC, JPDC, PARCO, Journal of Heuristics, JMMA, EJOR, Computer Communications, MIT

Evolutionary Computation In computer science, evolutionary computation is a family of algorithms for global optimization inspired by biological evolution, and the subfield of artificial intelligence and soft computing studying these algorithms. In technical terms, they ...

, Software: Practice and Experience, and Information Sciences, to name a few. According to

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

, as of 2024 he has an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...

of 69 and more than 22,000 citations to his work. From September 2021 Prof. Alba is seconded to Brussels to work in the

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

(ERC) for managing funds for supporting computer science in Europe and around the world.

References

External links

Enrique Alba home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alba, Enrique 1968 births Living people People from the Province of Málaga Spanish computer scientists Academic staff of the University of Málaga

Overview

Work

See also

References

Further reading

External links